
Nuclear-powered passenger aircraft 'to transport millions' - gibsonf1
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5024190.ece
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DanielBMarkham
Before the knee-jerk "E-gads! Flying Nukes to Kill us All!" gets out of hand,
I'd like to point out that pebble reactors have been talked about as useful
for transportation because of their crashability. Blow one up and you get
hundreds of thousands of "pebbles" that are slightly radioactive in themselves
but not enough to prevent relatively easy cleanup.

Along those same lines (low level fuel pieces assembled in a destruction-proof
container), aren't various companies working on micro-reactors or "nuclear
batteries"?

[http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2008/...](http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2008/08/21/nuclear-
hot-tub-reactors-25-million-each/)

"The fuel is uranium of a type that isn’t worth much to a terrorist. The
reactor operates with principles that shut themselves down so meltdowns and
other horrors for the neighbors simply don’t exist."

I'm not saying all the bugs are worked out. But it looks like enough has
changed since TMI that we could/should take an honest, open look at what we
can do with nuclear now that we couldn't back then. At least to me it has.

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bprater
_"Professor Poll said an alternative to carrying nuclear reactors on aircraft
would be to develop aircraft fuelled by hydrogen extracted from sea water by
nuclear power stations."_ Somehow, I'd feel a bit better flying across the US
knowing there wasn't a nuke reactor underneath me.

~~~
lhorn
Well... there are hundreds of cities where people live fairly close to a
reactor, with the same lethal outcome in case of failure. They live there 24/7
and you're opposed to an idea of spending at most tens of hours a year right
next to one?

The biggest issue is radioactive contamination in case of an ordinary plane
crash, and parachuting a reactor doesn't sound like especially convincing
solution: when planes crash, it is usually because a lot of things go wrong
onboard, with parachuting system possibly being one of them.

I think we'll be much better off investing into development of new generation
of speed trains: they can easily be made electric (thus taking advantage of
cheap nuclear energy), riding on electro-magnetic fields friction-free at
crazy speeds.

~~~
ars
"with the same lethal outcome in case of failure"

Not so, it's a lot easier to put extra safety equipment on the ground then on
an airplane.

I quite agree that parachuting the reactor is not going to work - if you were
flying the thing, and you had a 50% chance of saving the plane if you had a
power plant, but a 100% chance of crashing if you let it drop - would you do
it?

The military is trained for such choices, civilians are not.

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euroclydon
This is totally nuts. Talk about a flying dirty-bomb! Plus, jettisoning the
reactors and bringing them down with parachutes only works if you know you're
going to crash at a high enough altitude, which does not include takeoffs and
landings.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Technically the reactors could be encased in materials proven to be
unbreakable at these lower altitudes.... then the only danger would be high-
altitude crashes in which case the reactor parachuting _would_ be an answer...
except you can't guaranteed the parachutes would be in working condition after
a _________ miles up in the air. A normal engine failure could be rescued
from, but, say, a mid-air collision at high-altitudes between two planes
(regardless of how unlikely it may be) may leave the reactor rescue and
parachuting systems in no condition to guarantee a safe ejection.

~~~
hugh
What materials are proven unbreakable in a 500 mph aeroplane-meets-hard-
surface collision?

Also, what about a surface-to-air missile?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Pebble reactors anyone? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor>

~~~
hugh
I'm not gonna pretend to be an expert on reactor safety, but I do note that
the article mentions that a pebble bed reactor is kept inside a big concrete
building designed to withstand aircraft crashes.

I assume this means that an aircraft crash involving a pebble-bed reactor
_not_ inside a big concrete building could be bad. The second layer of
containment (two-meter thick walls) also sounds pretty difficult to make fly.

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hugh
Wow. If you'd told in October 2001 that in seven years people would be
seriously proposing putting nuclear reactors in aeroplanes I'd think you were
crazy. And yet, here we are. Have we forgotten? How quickly we swing from one
kind of hysteria to another.

 _in the worst-case scenario, if the armour plating around the reactor was
pierced there would be a risk of radioactive contamination over a few square
miles_

And that's supposed to make us feel better? Fun fact: the area of Manhattan is
23 square miles, and 1.8 million people live there.

Seriously, I'm a supporter of nuclear power if it's used sensibly, but
strapping wings to nuclear reactors and sending a couple of hundred to fly
over every city on Earth every day doesn't sound like "sensible" to me.

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jdavid
there is no reason not to explore this line of thinking, however, there would
be an even greater likelihood that someone would want to steal a planes
reactor to make some sort of bomb.

i think it would be safer to have the nuclear reactors and fuel on the ground
and to somehow transmit that energy to the plane.

another option would be lightweight, high density batteries that can be
charged in minutes. planes could then at first fly several hundred miles,
touchdown, refuel and then take off without much time loss. CNT (carbon
nanotubes) might produce batteries/capacitors that are upto the 'charge'.

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motoko
"He said that, in the worst-case scenario, if the armour plating around the
reactor was pierced there would be a risk of radioactive contamination over a
few square miles. "

So, even if these planes were to exist, we would need to build a new network
of remote nuclear airports (nukeports) miles away from any urban development
---plus a transportation infrastructure to shuttle between the nukeport and
urban centers.

The cost wouldn't be the flight itself, but the adhoc transportation network
of several dozen miles from the nukeport to urban centers. It could take
several hours to get from the nukeport to the city in poor traffic. That's why
this is impractical for civilian use, though maybe it could work for mass
military transport or freight.

~~~
astine
Most airports are already out in the boonies, (having something to do with
runways taking up space.) especially international ones, which would be for
what these planes are used. I don't think is would be that big of a deal. Now
if a plane crashed in an area with some kind of population, now that might be
a concern.

~~~
iigs
Just out of curiousity, where do you live? I can't name an international
airport [1], in the USA at least, that isn't in a part of town that has
traffic issues during rush hour. Industry pulls itself to airports possibly
faster than any other physical attribute.

[1] This assertion definitely excludes small potatoes airports that earn their
international name by serving the one country closest to them (i.e. small town
WY or MT airports serving Canada).

~~~
astine
I live in N. Virginia and my airport is Dullas. It's true that there are
people living near it and a lot of traffic by it, but that happened after the
airport was built not before. It's certainly not in the middle of a major
city. It's already hours from DC and where I live in good traffic. Poor
traffic is a nightmare.

Perhaps my perspective is a bit skewed by living in Virginia though,
development around here is really like anywhere else in the country.

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louislouis
Osama's gona love getting his hands on these bad boys.

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ars
Don't waste your time. This isn't going to work - it's far too heavy to fly.
And how would you power a jet from nuclear? It makes heat, that's it. No
reaction mass. Maybe steam to power a prop? Sounds unlikely.

Much better to use nuclear power for homes and electric cars, and save the
liquid fuels for airplanes.

~~~
z303
Have you looked at Project Pluto? They built a working nuclear jet engine

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ars
I have not, but reading it now (thanks for the link) I maintain what I wrote
(even though I got a lot of downmods): this is far too complicated to ever
actually work.

Did you read the section on tolerances, and the temperatures? Do you really
think such a thing would be reliable for day to day running on an airplane?

It's not impossible of course, but it's not practical, and it's a waste of
money. Use the nuclear power on earth, and save the liquid fuels for the air.

~~~
z303
No I don't think it would be a good idea for a whole bunch of reasons but it
is possible with people having taken it to the prototype stage. Like you I'd
spend the money on other things

