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completed breeder reactor based off of radioactive boy scout


dibinvaderzim

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Hello peoples of the internet, I am dibinvaderzim. I had an idea about the radioactive boy scout thingy.

See, the officials say that the reactor was unfinished and never fuctioned, but he was really close to creating an operational breeder reactor. He got a plethora of ionizing smoke detectors, then extracted the americium-241 then got aluminium and a lead block and mode a neutron gun. His project could have easily been completed by submerging parts of the reactor with the irradiated fuel in water, so when the fissle material came out of the process, it would boil the water , which would travel into a turbine, thus creating power. Correct? I am not to sure. Please correct me if I am wrong and go easy on me , I am only 11yrs old!!!!!

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It would never have worked.

The neutron gun relied on alpha particles knocking neutrons out of beryllium or aluminium (the stories vary).

But only about 1 alpha in 100,000 does that- the rest are "wasted".

You can't really build a reactor based on that design.

However what he did was very dangerous.

Don't try it.

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You can't really get a reactor to produce useful power that way.

It wouldn't really matter much how many smoke detectors he got.

(strictly it would because you can get a reactor with 60 Kg of 241 Am: but each detector contains something like a ten millionth of a gram ).

You would need roughly 50 smoke detectors for every person on the planet to supply the Americium.

 

Producing that would require rather a lot of conventional reactors so, what would be the point?

 

All you could hope to achieve was a nasty radioactive mess.

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I'm pretty sure that is what he has, his picture was quite frightening, I've seen advanced tweekers that looked like prince charming in comparison. If I can remember where the article came from I'll post it but he has essentially irradiated himself by pursuing this endeavor over the years... If I remember correctly americium can be used to make a nuclear bomb but it takes quite a bit more than anyone could accumulate in a reasonable amount of time... but still less than the plutonium or U235 required.


http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/87734

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission-fragment_rocket

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Sorry I havent been posting recently, I was at school. Anyway, he could get the reactor to worlk bycreating heavy isotopes with combined alpha particle sources and could avoid some of the radiation with tons of tungsten and lead.

 

 

That's kinda beyond the whole "boyscout" project isn't it?

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The linked description of a reactor for rocket propulsion avoids to tell a few things (which I was too lazy to search elsewhere), like:

  • - How is americium plasma confined, but not hydrogen despite being a plasma as well
  • - What hydrogen pressure is compatible with the reactor, and whether this pressure fits gas flow in a rocket engine

    (this is a basic limit in any thermal rocket engine, I found lucky to have one operation domain for my Solar one)

  • What happens to beryllium oxide, how quickly. How to test on Earth and clean the mess.
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The linked description of a reactor for rocket propulsion avoids to tell a few things (which I was too lazy to search elsewhere), like:

  • - How is americium plasma confined, but not hydrogen despite being a plasma as well
  • - What hydrogen pressure is compatible with the reactor, and whether this pressure fits gas flow in a rocket engine

    (this is a basic limit in any thermal rocket engine, I found lucky to have one operation domain for my Solar one)

  • What happens to beryllium oxide, how quickly. How to test on Earth and clean the mess.

 

 

 

I can't read the paper but if it is similar to the Nuclear light bulb rocket the wall is quartz cooled by liquid hydrogen and the americium plasma would stay confined in the "light bulb" ... there are of course problems to be solved...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_lightbulb

 

IMHO the real key to this would be the ability to create a magnetic field sufficiently strong enough to contain the plasma...

Edited by Moontanman
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ThSorr y I havent been posting recently. I have come up with an idea in his film, they say he used thorium lantern mantles to get thorium- 232, an alpha particle emitter. Combine this with cheap isotopes from tritium keychains, smoke detectors and some sheilding equippment, and voila! A neutron gun!!

 

P.S boy scouts will do anything to get things done beleive me, my friend ( a boy scout) spent over $800 just to make a garden fence at my school for his eagle scout project

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ThSorr y I havent been posting recently. I have come up with an idea in his film, they say he used thorium lantern mantles to get thorium- 232, an alpha particle emitter. Combine this with cheap isotopes from tritium keychains, smoke detectors and some sheilding equippment, and voila! A neutron gun!!

 

P.S boy scouts will do anything to get things done beleive me, my friend ( a boy scout) spent over $800 just to make a garden fence at my school for his eagle scout project

 

 

This isn't something you're actually considering trying, is it? Please don't.

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