Reply To: Repowering the electric utility industry

[zapkitty]

Joeviocoe wrote:
Thanks James for the clarification. Mobile operations will indeed be difficult if heavy gamma shielding is needed. But submarines and ships can handle it since they already deal with heavy shielding for their fission reactors.

When considering mobile uses for FF units one must take into consideration the mass and volume not only of the power system being replaced but also the mass and volume of the fuel (usually fossil) that is no longer needed. The mass and volume of fossil fuel storage is a surprisingly large portion of all current Earthside transport methods.

The most common near-term mobile uses considered for commercial FF units (given that the parameters proposed by LPP hold up) are for:

cars – too heavy

trucks – semi-sized [em]could[/em] be made to work

trains – a good fit

large watercraft – also a good match. The Navies of the world will love you forever.

large hovercraft – well… [em]I[/em] considered them 🙂 Some interesting possibilities, I think.

aircraft – high subsonic cargo transports, which is the bulk of commercial aviation, should work well if you can deal with the C11 in a crash scenario

spaceborne applications – good for surface bases and large space stations but FF launch vehicles and FF-propelled spacecraft will require a scale of vehicles and infrastructure not yet under consideration… or a very [em]interesting[/em] lack of shielding 🙂

… but you could plant crewed lunar research stations wheresoever they suited you.