Thermite Reactor

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  • Wednesday, March 23, 2011
  • Archimedes
  • Labels: , ,
  • So earlier on I designed a weapon that incorporates thermite, and mom's not too happy about my destructive nature. So here is a reactor that generates lots of power with the same concept, the power from which can be used to power cities or weapons to defend/destroy cities, that outta make the world a little happier...
    It is a grim fact that we are running out of fossil fuels, big deal. As long as there is demand for power, we can always switch to something even more powerful and damaging to the environment, as long as its cheap...
    The core of the earth is made almost entirely out of iron and about 35% of earth's mass is entirely iron, so no risk of iron, the metal which burns in thermite reactions, from running out. The other ingredient for a termite reaction is alumnium, which is 8.1% of the earth's crust, and so we also have plenty of that ingredient. Although it is expensive to extract and purify, for something as crude as a burning reaction we dont need it to even resembol a metal.
    Instead of burning fossil fuels or using nuclear fuel to heat a vat of water, sustain a thermite reaction in the center of the coolant vat (water) by accelerating chunks of iron rust and aluminum into an already started thermite reaction, creating a little thermite "sun" in a vat of coolant(water). Thermite burns at like 3,000 C, and its also self-oxidizing, so the water wont snuff it out, it will absorb heat with more effiency than other reactors. By skipping the contaminated to uncontaminated coolant stage in nuclear reactiors, and the metal container keeping the water from the fire in conventional generators, power is transferred with almost 100% efficiency from heat source to water, because the heat source is in the water. Water exposed to 3,000 degrees will obviously vaporize into steam, and that will be directed up a tower through a bunch of gas based turbines, and instead of going directly back down, it will be collected in an condensing tank at the top of the tower. Condensed water will drop down through the tower, powering yet another set of fluid based turbines on their way back down to the reaction chamber, only to be vaporized again there and set off on another ride through both sets of turbines and so on and so on. On the way up, some steam is siphoned off to push powdered fuels into the chamber. Any solid reactor waste is collected in a fine mesh net below the reaction in the water, and removed and replaced remotely without stopping the reactor.
    The only problem I can find while writing this thing is that to mine the fuels needed will actually require more energy than the energy generated, seeing as how purifying iron(not really, seeing as how we want iron trioxide, which is common iron rust) and aluminum(which is really hard) are challenges in and of themselves. But this problem is softened seeing as how we don't need the fuels 100% pure, just like coal. The bad stuff that wont burn will bet caught up in the mesh nets and filters, so there are problems, but they can be solved.

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