Reply To: Focus fusion and transportation

[dennisp]

For vehicles large enough to carry their own FF reactor, it’d be crazy not to just do that. Ships for sure, maybe trains and large aircraft.

For smaller vehicles, nothing yet beats the energy density and fast refueling of hydrocarbons. Even the military has to consider that, unless they know for sure their vehicles will only be out for short trips. If batteries get good enough, that might change….but I’ve gotten tired of holding my breath for that. (That said, there are some pretty interesting projects in the labs.)

Boron is another interesting possibility, described in Tom Blees’ book. Even better energy density than gasoline, but it only burns in pure oxygen, and at pretty high temperature. It’d be a technical challenge, but if you can get it to work, you’re emission-free…you just ship the solid oxidized boron back to the factory.