Fission or fusion?

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

Rifts makes extensive use of nuclear power plants. Everything is nuclear powered: power armor, hovercycles, Prosek's field Porta-Potty, "Honest John".

OK, yes, I know, not EVERYTHING is nuke-powered. It was a joke.

I don't recall seeing anywhere in any of the books whether these power plants were fission or fusion. When I was younger I just assumed fission, and hand-waved the logistics of things like having enough uranium for all the nuclear-powered everything that was running around and disposal of all the radioactive waste that would be generated (if the CS won't use U-rounds for 'enviro reasons', I doubt they're going to allow random mercs to just dump the contents of their reactors on the ground). I never really thought about fusion plants until reading some fanfiction recently. Fusion plants would go a long way toward solving the uranium-supply problem, as well as the radioactive waste problem. They add the "My reactor just took a hit by a plasma cannon, OH NOEZ!" problem, but that can be used for great effect during combat.

So what have you all used in your games, fission or fusion?

[Killer Cyborg]

Fashion.

[DhAkael]

Usually handwavium(tm) fueled micro-fusion cores or super-compact direct-conversion (again, using phlebtonium mechanics) fission batteries.
Re; doesn't use heat exchange but converts the radiation its-self directly to electricity (Yeah yeah yeah; all you slide-rule mafia can go jump in a lake).
I figure by the time of the 'Golden age' certain technologies & science would have evolved... or y'know... the entire setting being FICTITIOUS, magic faeries deal with the problem.
Though in all seriousness, it's most likely Mr. FUSION(tm) running everything like in 'Back to the Future's future

[The Beast]

Fashion.

That has to be one interesting campaign you got going there. I might have to drive out to Illinois just to sit in on one game.

[guardiandashi]

Rifts makes extensive use of nuclear power plants. Everything is nuclear powered: power armor, hovercycles, Prosek's field Porta-Potty, "Honest John".

OK, yes, I know, not EVERYTHING is nuke-powered. It was a joke.

I don't recall seeing anywhere in any of the books whether these power plants were fission or fusion. When I was younger I just assumed fission, and hand-waved the logistics of things like having enough uranium for all the nuclear-powered everything that was running around and disposal of all the radioactive waste that would be generated (if the CS won't use U-rounds for 'enviro reasons', I doubt they're going to allow random mercs to just dump the contents of their reactors on the ground). I never really thought about fusion plants until reading some fanfiction recently. Fusion plants would go a long way toward solving the uranium-supply problem, as well as the radioactive waste problem. They add the "My reactor just took a hit by a plasma cannon, OH NOEZ!" problem, but that can be used for great effect during combat.

So what have you all used in your games, fission or fusion?

Officially?
All the nuclear power supplies are fission, as rifts earth even in the golden century never got fusion to work actually.

The other issue is 8n all likelihood the only robo5 vehicles big enough to have a fusion reactor in them is likelyon the order of the size of an x5000 from triax and even that is on the small side.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

It doesnt even state that they are fission, i dont think. Its just handwaved “micro power plants”.

Its also one of the things I ignore completely. Nothing in my game smaller than a Robot or Tank/APC has a full-up power plant in it.

Those fission plants are where the “Golden Age” tech comes in - instead of needing huge amounts of water to generate steam for power, they figured out how to basically create a closed-loop cooling/generation system on a (relatively) small scale. The coolant is circulated/evaporated & recondensed/whateverworks.

Smaller vehicles, in my game, use nuclear batteries coupled with capacitors. Basically, a small rod or sphere of radioactive material is surrounded by a substance that gives off electricity when exposed to radiation. It doesnt generate enough to run the vehicle at 100%, but coupled with some super-dense batteries and capacitors, the vehicle can operate close to 24/7 with reasonable downtime, (Stops to sleep, etc), and if the vehicle isnt using all available power (just walking around in your PA, for instance), pretty much non-stop.

Thats all house-rule, though. From a canon standpoint, they are nuclear (of some kind) but not fusion, as that requires reaction mass (fuel) and they obviously dont have onboard fuel (since they have years of limitless power).

[drewkitty ~..~]

Nuclear battery is the common term for beta-voltaic power sources. Fairly safe in small watch battery sized forms or smaller. But they get more dangerous as they get larger in size. The radiation output is cumulative with the amount of radioactive stuff that is the core of the beta-voltaic power core.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaic_device

[glitterboy2098]

rules generally support Fission (radiation effects from breaches, they produce small amounts of plutonium and weapons grade material, etc). Fusion gets mentioned sometimes, but so far we've had little evidence that Kevin Siembeida even knows the difference.

[ShadowLogan]

Rifts makes extensive use of nuclear power plants. Everything is nuclear powered: power armor, hovercycles, Prosek's field Porta-Potty, "Honest John".

OK, yes, I know, not EVERYTHING is nuke-powered. It was a joke.

I don't recall seeing anywhere in any of the books whether these power plants were fission or fusion. When I was younger I just assumed fission, and hand-waved the logistics of things like having enough uranium for all the nuclear-powered everything that was running around and disposal of all the radioactive waste that would be generated (if the CS won't use U-rounds for 'enviro reasons', I doubt they're going to allow random mercs to just dump the contents of their reactors on the ground). I never really thought about fusion plants until reading some fanfiction recently. Fusion plants would go a long way toward solving the uranium-supply problem, as well as the radioactive waste problem. They add the "My reactor just took a hit by a plasma cannon, OH NOEZ!" problem, but that can be used for great effect during combat.

So what have you all used in your games, fission or fusion?

Honestly its BOTH. It looks like Golden Age Earth was in that transition of fission to fusion adoption IMHO.

MercOps has a "Miniature Fusion Power Plant" (pg113) that is listed as being a suitable replacement for vehicle nuclear power plant. That is miniature likely indicates they have larger models available. Then you have MiO (pg81) Plasma Drive described as rare/experimental using controlled Fusion w/difficult to obtain fuel (which doesn't make any sense), though how much that reflects on Fusion applications outside of propulsion is of course speculative.(Note: depending on the fuel used it is possible to result in radioactive waste.

SB4 indicates the CS produces fission nuclear weapon (SB4), suggesting that fission is in use. It should also be noted that Uranium isn't the only option for Nuclear Fuel, Thorium is also possible (and much more abundant, and could be a source of uranium).

And honestly I'd probably just say that PB "Nuclear" systems are a hybrid or 2-stage system with the fission powering the fusion system (sort of like how some fusion weapons use a smaller fission weapon to start the process).

[Eagle]

There's a crapload of uranium available in the western United States and Canada. Any nation of any size operating in North America should have little trouble getting it. New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, it's all over the place out there.

[glitterboy2098]

There's a crapload of uranium available in the western United States and Canada. Any nation of any size operating in North America should have little trouble getting it. New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, it's all over the place out there.

Thorium is even more common. And can be found in California, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, north and south Carolina, Illinois, Iowa, northern Missouri... Heck the western part of the 'domain of man' has high concentrations of the stuff, but it can be found in all 50 states to some degree.

[taalismn]

Fashion.

That has to be one interesting campaign you got going there. I might have to drive out to Illinois just to sit in on one game.

The powerplants draw upon the radiated awe and ogle energy of the observers. The more and more appreciative they look, the greater the absorbed power to the fashionista-powered hardware.
Sometimes called the 'Zoolander Effect'.

[Blue_Lion]

Fashion.

That has to be one interesting campaign you got going there. I might have to drive out to Illinois just to sit in on one game.

The powerplants draw upon the radiated awe and ogle energy of the observers. The more and more appreciative they look, the greater the absorbed power to the fashionista-powered hardware.
Sometimes called the 'Zoolander Effect'.

Well that explains the NG crotch guns.

[taalismn]

Rifts makes extensive use of nuclear power plants. Everything is nuclear powered: power armor, hovercycles, Prosek's field Porta-Potty, "Honest John". ?

As the designer of a combat-rated portable latrine, I take this seriously. It becomes even more practical in a world where there's the real possibility of mutants who can $#!+ lead bricks.

[Wise_Owl]

Well boiling this down, what do we 'know' about the Nuclear Power Sources of Rifts Earth;
1. That they have a finite shelf life usually in the 5-10 year range
2. That they don't appear to need external refuelling during that time period(i.e. there is no indication that you have to buy fuel for them to keep them going)
3. That if destroyed they are bad for the environment and people.

So for options we have;

[*]Some Derivative of a Present Day Nuclear Generator, utilizing Fission to produce heat and turn a Steam Turbine: This seems unlikely as it doesn't hold with 1 or 2 and given the size involved I'm not sure there is a way to make a typical steam turbine that small.
[*]A Super-science Derivative of present Day Nuclear Reactors that utilizing the heat produces in Fission reactions and turns it into power some other way. This might work. If one assumes they are sealed systems that are designed to work until they don't. 2 might even be false and you do need to refuel them over time(even though this isn't canon, I do kind of like it from an RP perspective. Robot owners having to gain new Fuel rods periodically, Towns mining the radioactive substances required for the systems.)
[*]Some sort of Super-science Fusion System that converts heat from Fusion reactions into Electricity. The only issue here is number 3; Fusion systems, unless they are triggered by a fission system, do not produce harmful radiation in the same way.
[*]Some sort of Radioisotope Generator. These things take Radioactive Isotopes and convert heat directly into electricity. They have issues with efficiency, but they last a long time.

I think some variant of the last is the most likely; some sort of system that is much more efficient and produces much greater energy values than any present system, but also increases rates of decay so they only last 5-10 years before dropping below a necessary efficiency level.

Anything but Fusion sort of requires you to ask 'Where is all this radioactive material coming from?', but the Rifts provide enough of an answer to not really worry. Like most science-related questions in this game, I tend to default to what seems most interesting and what provides the most impetus for interesting stories.

[glitterboy2098]

note also that "triggering" fusion with fission is only something that happens with Bombs.. and requires powerful fission bombs to do it. so unless you want hiroshima+ going off a couple times a second in your SAMAS's power pack, probably not a viable option.

another thing going against fusion is that their fuel is very low density, meaning low eight but very high bulk.. even in liquid forms. and the most easily avaialble and efficent one is hydrogen.. which leaks through stuff like a sieve. (it's atom is actually smaller than the average distance between two atoms in a solid.. it literally can pass through everything.)
fusion is also, even at ideal forms, incredibly fuel guzzling.
so not only would 10 years of hydrogen fuel be massive in terms of storage tanks, they'd leak hydrogen all over (major explosive hazard) and you'd have to constantly fill them to avoid losing it all.
there are some forms of hydrogen that might avoid the leakage problems (metallic hydrogen, like robotech's SLMH for example, would avoid the worst of it), but a decades supply would still be huge in quantity..

[ShadowLogan]

note also that "triggering" fusion with fission is only something that happens with Bombs.. and requires powerful fission bombs to do it. so unless you want hiroshima+ going off a couple times a second in your SAMAS's power pack, probably not a viable option.

Not necessarily. I think your taking the example a bit to literally for this.

What I was thinking was something similar to the MiO Plasma Drive (pg81) that uses a controlled fusion reaction, but still requires a separate power source ("often a second nuclear reactor"). Basically there are a few ways to set this up:
-use the fission reactor to power the fusion reactor mechanisms themselves (you'd still need to produce more energy via fusion than the fission reactor is capable of outputting to be viable, if your using the fusion system for energy generation and not strictly propulsion as the MiO example)
-use the fission reactor to jump start the fusion process (sort of like how a non-electric car uses a battery to start, but then switches to an alternator for regular operations)
-or they use one as a primary energy source and the other an auxiliary/alternate power source (case in point RT 1E and 2E does have examples of backup/auxiliary/alternate power sources noted in the stats)

Fuel of course is an issue for Fusion as you said, but there might be ways around it:
-if the "reactor endurance" isn't a measure of the fuel supply, but rather the "life" of the components before failure (analogy ex: aircraft have lifespans measure in hours, but their fuel supply won't last anywhere that long w/on-board storage). Granted Palladium in the 1E RT did have fusion systems w/endurance figures in years (pg77 FIRST EDITION RT Bk5 under the Protoculture Targeting System mentions that by this time a good percentage of ASC hardware is purely fusion driven w/o PC), so it might just be lack of technical understanding on PB's part about fusion system requirements.
-I have to wonder if their fusion systems aren't using some type of proton based reaction instead of hydrogen isotopes (ex Deuterium), they do have particle beam weapons (DB13 pg 72/74/77 Neutron Cannons state "as opposed to the protons of a standard particle cannon", though if this is mentioned previously i'm not sure of off hand). Particle weapons then would "solve" the fuel issue given particle weapons don't have "fuel" requirement in game (they can be powered by a universal e-clip w/no other "fuel" being "required" or "stated"). One thing working in favour is that if it is fusion, we don't know what type of fusion reaction is being done (D+D, D+He3, Proton-Proton, etc) allowing some "flexibility".

[kaid]

I sort of assume most power armor/robot vehicles are using advanced hyper tech versions of nuclear batteries you find in modern day space probes. Due to the design you can armor them up pretty well without effecting their usefulness which is a big plus for battlefield robots also not a lot of moving parts so you could make them pretty reasonable size. Now add in a lot of super conductors and capacitors pretty decent seeming source for continuous power source.

It also explains some of the comments of wrecked power armor/robot vehicles contaminating streams with radiation in various books. Fusion would have very limited radiation leakage issues once the reactor stops the fuel is only mildly radioactive. The harder stuff that is generated is short duration and does not last past the reactor shut down. It is possible they are using fission but if you make it small enough to fit in power armor in practice it probably winds up being a lot like a nuke battery anyway with more control issues.

[glitterboy2098]

note also that "triggering" fusion with fission is only something that happens with Bombs.. and requires powerful fission bombs to do it. so unless you want hiroshima+ going off a couple times a second in your SAMAS's power pack, probably not a viable option.

Not necessarily. I think your taking the example a bit to literally for this.

What I was thinking was something similar to the MiO Plasma Drive (pg81) that uses a controlled fusion reaction, but still requires a separate power source ("often a second nuclear reactor"). Basically there are a few ways to set this up:
-use the fission reactor to power the fusion reactor mechanisms themselves (you'd still need to produce more energy via fusion than the fission reactor is capable of outputting to be viable, if your using the fusion system for energy generation and not strictly propulsion as the MiO example)
-use the fission reactor to jump start the fusion process (sort of like how a non-electric car uses a battery to start, but then switches to an alternator for regular operations)
-or they use one as a primary energy source and the other an auxiliary/alternate power source (case in point RT 1E and 2E does have examples of backup/auxiliary/alternate power sources noted in the stats).

if a fusion powerplant requires an outside source of power to operate, it isn't a very good powerplant, since it would thus be operating below the breakeven point. might as well just use a bigger fission plant in such a case, and not waste the mass and volume on a fusion plant.

a fusion drive on the otherhand might need an external power supply, since those aren't looking to generate power, just thrust. most fusion drives being researched IRL are variations of the pulsed-explosive model.. small bits of hydrogen caused to fuse like a thermonuclear bomb (often by laser or magnetic pinching), with the explosion being reflected off the drive walls to generate thrust. not much different than the old orion drive concept of exploding small nukes to push you along, just using more controlled explosions. since they are not trying to extract electrical or thermal power from the explosion, they need a separate powerplant to run the ship and power the igniter system and other parts of the drive.

[ShadowLogan]

I don't agree that if a fusion reactor requires an outside source to operate it isn't very good for power generation, we have to remember that the fusion reactor will require something to power it initially (the battery on my car powers the engine/electronics until the alternator can take over after all, without it or a suitable substitute the engine won't start). Should also consider that if the nuclear fission reactor is used to start things, it might make sense to still use it for some functions since it will still be producing power in some form that could be extracted which would give the platform more energy than either could provide alone (weather the dual nature would be more compact than simply making a more potent reactor for either is a valid concern).

Normal operations with a fusion reactor might also call for it to be shut down during idle periods (like when its put in storage, "parked" for the night, etc), at least for 'bots/pa/vehicles of Rifts Earth. Which if done would lessen the fuel requirements (assuming it requires conventional fuel of course), if the power plant is assumed to be shut down during "idle" periods yielding up an estimated #of years worth of fuel becomes a lot easier than assuming constant operation for that same period. If done though you need a way to start the reactor back up, which doesn't have to be fission I admit.

[drewkitty ~..~]

If starting cold fusion plants (drive or power generating) need an outside power source to start up. Otherwise they can not get up to operating temp. (note: I am not talking about plants that use laser induced fusion.) This outside power source can be built into the ship as a secondary power plant or power that was stored in capacitors. I've read a cheesy sci-fi novel series that got this part right.

This 'outside power' can be almost anything. In AU:GG in the ship construction text there are no power plants included with the ship systems listed. There is a side note in the weapons text about oversized weapons on a smaller hull, that the increased size is to accommodate all the structural support and power systems. As if the space listed (for the drives...I think) already takes in account for the power systems needed to run the ship.
With about half of the drives listed....they are (or can be) also power sources. (fusion, fission, In.s. Ramjet, M/AM annihilation, Metallic Hydrogen, AM fusion.) While others (AG, ion, proton, tachyon, hypergravtics, TLT)[traction]{CG} are power consuming drives.

[Knowing Telepath]

I assumed it was something similar to the old HTRE-3 nuclear powered aircraft reactors we used to have. I don’t have all the specs anymore from my old navy nuke days, but it was an air cooled reactor that used the thermal expansion of the air to create thrust. Granted there was an undesired reactivity excursion in real life, but that’s what golden age handwavium is for.

[glitterboy2098]

If starting cold fusion plants (drive or power generating) need an outside power source to start up. Otherwise they can not get up to operating temp. (note: I am not talking about plants that use laser induced fusion.) This outside power source can be built into the ship as a secondary power plant or power that was stored in capacitors. I've read a cheesy sci-fi novel series that got this part right.

rifts has incredibly dense power storage system tech, as evidenced by e-clip technology. a starting charge is usually a short lived requirement, so a fusion reactor could include power storage for start up, which then recharges off the plant's output. only the very first start up would require an outside power source, to charge up the 'batteries' for the igniter.

[guardiandashi]

something I read, not rifts, but other sci-fi settings, gives me an idea how the Nuclear (fission) reactors of rifts "could" work as described.

the smaller powerplants in power armor and most robot vehicles and similar, use power plants that are RTG's Radioisotope Thermal Generators, such as on space probes and similar today. the Big difference is that they have vastly improved thermal Electric components which means that they effectively skip the whole steam turbine generator cycle we have to use on todays nuclear powerplants, what happens instead is that they have a "solid state" component in the generators that turns the thermal difference between the "hot" core of the power plant, and the (relatively) cold surrounding environment into a way of generating power, they also have vastly improved radiation shielding which means a thin relatively light material stops radiation cold, that would take huge amounts of heavy material to absorb for us today.

its also possible, that they have a tech that combines the two features, IE it absorbs the fast particles, (radiation) and bleeds off the energy, turning them into slow particles that are effectively no longer radioactive

[Hotrod]

So what have you all used in your games, fission or fusion?

The reality of both fission and fusion is that both would require so much shielding that they couldn't be portable. High-energy photons and neutrons require different types of shielding, and they require a good bit of it (like feet) to keep radiation outside the reactor vessel down.

Now, a radioisotope battery might do the job. Plutonium 238 is fantastic for this, since it produces no penetrating radiation and mostly just generates a lot of heat. That's why we use it for space probes and the like. There's also some interesting research going into the relationship between radioactive decay rates and sun flares, which suggests that we may be able to accelerate or slow down radioactive decays if we can identify and control the mechanism that links these phenomena.

There are also research efforts that have gone into finding isotopes that could be activated in such a way that you could effectively "turn on" the radiation. The idea is that you take an isotope that doesn't decay away quickly, put it into an excited state with some input radiation, and then the excited isotope decays and releases a lot of energy without the high-energy neutrons and photons. It's theoretically possible, but no such isotope/excited state has been found yet that would allow for something like the nuclear power packs described in the books.

If I had to choose a method, I'd probably go with an "activate-able isotope reactor." While you can have a small fission or fusion reactor, such reactors are single-use pulsed reactors, or in layman's terms, bombs.

[eliakon]

So what have you all used in your games, fission or fusion?

The reality of both fission and fusion is that both would require so much shielding that they couldn't be portable. High-energy photons and neutrons require different types of shielding, and they require a good bit of it (like feet) to keep radiation outside the reactor vessel down.

Now, a radioisotope battery might do the job. Plutonium 238 is fantastic for this, since it produces no penetrating radiation and mostly just generates a lot of heat. That's why we use it for space probes and the like. There's also someinteresting researchgoing into the relationship between radioactive decay rates and sun flares, which suggests that we may be able to accelerate or slow down radioactive decays if we can identify and control the mechanism that links these phenomena.

There are also research efforts that have gone into finding isotopes that could be activated in such a way that you could effectively "turn on" the radiation. The idea is that you take an isotope that doesn't decay away quickly, put it into an excited state with some input radiation, and then the excited isotope decays and releases a lot of energy without the high-energy neutrons and photons. It's theoretically possible, but no such isotope/excited state has been found yet that would allow for something like the nuclear power packs described in the books.

If I had to choose a method, I'd probably go with an "activate-able isotope reactor." While you can have a small fission or fusion reactor, such reactors are single-use pulsed reactors, or in layman's terms, bombs.

Obviously the isotope is Plotonium 411

[glitterboy2098]

the smaller powerplants in power armor and most robot vehicles and similar, use power plants that are RTG's Radioisotope Thermal Generators, such as on space probes and similar today. the Big difference is that they have vastly improved thermal Electric components which means that they effectively skip the whole steam turbine generator cycle we have to use on todays nuclear powerplants, what happens instead is that they have a "solid state" component in the generators that turns the thermal difference between the "hot" core of the power plant, and the (relatively) cold surrounding environment into a way of generating power, they also have vastly improved radiation shielding which means a thin relatively light material stops radiation cold, that would take huge amounts of heavy material to absorb for us today.

actually that is literally how RTG's work. look up the seebeck effect.

the best part is that since the seebeck effect only requires a temperature gradient, it does not actually use any of the heat. so you could combine it with other systems that exploit the heat itself, like a Stirling engine, to generate additional power.

also, RTG type systems usually only produce small amounts of Alpha or Beta particles, since it is natural decay, which means you can get by with a layer of lead foil or in some cases, plastic for radiation shielding. (the main radiation contamination hazard is not radiation form operation, but rather the fact that if the device if damaged, the material inside will flake and spread, contaminating the soil and water around it. which will screw with the biology of anything that grows or consumes the contaminated soil, water, the plants that grow in it, or the animals that eat the plants.)

[silversarith]

My typical go to has been most bots are Fission. Reactor shielding problems and some space requirements are easy enough to hand wave away with Megadamage alloys. Fusion I tend to reserve more for larger vehicles or bases that have a steady water supply and are able to generate hydrogen or helium fuel and store a large amount. I believe canonically if it says nuclear power-plant in system it is generally assumed to be Fission as they all are given decades of effective fuel life before needing a refit, and there are a number of articles here and there talking about the hazards of leaks; which to my admittedly limited knowledge isn't much of a concern with Fusion.

For my games I've used an assumption that major nation states have some heavy duty Fusion plants, not just for power generation, but also to recycle or otherwise super science hand wave old fuel rods back into usable material and as part of the process for making it in the first place. I mean, we are talking about a setting where the armor on anything noteworthy that isn't straight magic has to be practically nano-forged or some other absurd process like that as every MD armor plate makes carbon-fiber nano-tubes look like baby material.

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

the smaller powerplants in power armor and most robot vehicles and similar, use power plants that are RTG's Radioisotope Thermal Generators, such as on space probes and similar today. the Big difference is that they have vastly improved thermal Electric components which means that they effectively skip the whole steam turbine generator cycle we have to use on todays nuclear powerplants, what happens instead is that they have a "solid state" component in the generators that turns the thermal difference between the "hot" core of the power plant, and the (relatively) cold surrounding environment into a way of generating power, they also have vastly improved radiation shielding which means a thin relatively light material stops radiation cold, that would take huge amounts of heavy material to absorb for us today.

actually that is literally how RTG's work. look up the seebeck effect.

the best part is that since the seebeck effect only requires a temperature gradient, it does not actually use any of the heat. so you could combine it with other systems that exploit the heat itself, like a Stirling engine, to generate additional power.

also, RTG type systems usually only produce small amounts of Alpha or Beta particles, since it is natural decay, which means you can get by with a layer of lead foil or in some cases, plastic for radiation shielding. (the main radiation contamination hazard is not radiation form operation, but rather the fact that if the device if damaged, the material inside will flake and spread, contaminating the soil and water around it. which will screw with the biology of anything that grows or consumes the contaminated soil, water, the plants that grow in it, or the animals that eat the plants.)

This is great stuff guys. This topic is one of the many things that I was always curious about but never got around to studying up on.

How much power could an RTG system generate? Something like a space probe has vastly different requirements than say a UAR-1 Enforcer robot. Anti-personnel lasers are going to suck down a lot of juice, not to mention railguns or plasma cannons.

Thanks for the info thus far, by the way. I'll have to do some more research and take notes for adding to the books.

[Natasha]

the smaller powerplants in power armor and most robot vehicles and similar, use power plants that are RTG's Radioisotope Thermal Generators, such as on space probes and similar today. the Big difference is that they have vastly improved thermal Electric components which means that they effectively skip the whole steam turbine generator cycle we have to use on todays nuclear powerplants, what happens instead is that they have a "solid state" component in the generators that turns the thermal difference between the "hot" core of the power plant, and the (relatively) cold surrounding environment into a way of generating power, they also have vastly improved radiation shielding which means a thin relatively light material stops radiation cold, that would take huge amounts of heavy material to absorb for us today.

actually that is literally how RTG's work. look up the seebeck effect.

the best part is that since the seebeck effect only requires a temperature gradient, it does not actually use any of the heat. so you could combine it with other systems that exploit the heat itself, like a Stirling engine, to generate additional power.

also, RTG type systems usually only produce small amounts of Alpha or Beta particles, since it is natural decay, which means you can get by with a layer of lead foil or in some cases, plastic for radiation shielding. (the main radiation contamination hazard is not radiation form operation, but rather the fact that if the device if damaged, the material inside will flake and spread, contaminating the soil and water around it. which will screw with the biology of anything that grows or consumes the contaminated soil, water, the plants that grow in it, or the animals that eat the plants.)

This is great stuff guys. This topic is one of the many things that I was always curious about but never got around to studying up on.

How much power could an RTG system generate? Something like a space probe has vastly different requirements than say a UAR-1 Enforcer robot. Anti-personnel lasers are going to suck down a lot of juice, not to mention railguns or plasma cannons.

Thanks for the info thus far, by the way. I'll have to do some more research and take notes for adding to the books.

You won't get much power from modern day thermal couples -- at best 10% efficient and say about 100 W. But it's Rifts, so it's fair to say as much as they need to.

[guardiandashi]

the smaller powerplants in power armor and most robot vehicles and similar, use power plants that are RTG's Radioisotope Thermal Generators, such as on space probes and similar today. the Big difference is that they have vastly improved thermal Electric components which means that they effectively skip the whole steam turbine generator cycle we have to use on todays nuclear powerplants, what happens instead is that they have a "solid state" component in the generators that turns the thermal difference between the "hot" core of the power plant, and the (relatively) cold surrounding environment into a way of generating power, they also have vastly improved radiation shielding which means a thin relatively light material stops radiation cold, that would take huge amounts of heavy material to absorb for us today.

actually that is literally how RTG's work. look up the seebeck effect.

the best part is that since the seebeck effect only requires a temperature gradient, it does not actually use any of the heat. so you could combine it with other systems that exploit the heat itself, like a Stirling engine, to generate additional power.

also, RTG type systems usually only produce small amounts of Alpha or Beta particles, since it is natural decay, which means you can get by with a layer of lead foil or in some cases, plastic for radiation shielding. (the main radiation contamination hazard is not radiation form operation, but rather the fact that if the device if damaged, the material inside will flake and spread, contaminating the soil and water around it. which will screw with the biology of anything that grows or consumes the contaminated soil, water, the plants that grow in it, or the animals that eat the plants.)

This is great stuff guys. This topic is one of the many things that I was always curious about but never got around to studying up on.

How much power could an RTG system generate? Something like a space probe has vastly different requirements than say a UAR-1 Enforcer robot. Anti-personnel lasers are going to suck down a lot of juice, not to mention railguns or plasma cannons.

Thanks for the info thus far, by the way. I'll have to do some more research and take notes for adding to the books.

the power generated by a RTG generator will vary tremendously depending on various design considerations.
1 what fuel is used the fuel used in a RTG determines things like heat temperature reached, how fast the fuel decays and how much fuel it takes to reach critical mass (if its possible to get there)

other factors would include the efficiency and type of power generation systems.

to give an example most nuclear reactors are if looked at a certain way a form of non solid state RTG.
1 it uses the nuclear power core to generate heat replacing the typically coal, gas, natural gas, or other burning material heat source, a geothermal power plant does a similar thing with capturing heat from "natural" earth underground heat sources.
2 it then uses that heat source to heat water and generate steam
3 it runs the steam through turbines to spin electric generators.

the RTG replaces steps 2 and 3 with solid state thermal electric components IE the temperature difference causes power to be generated.

it might be an oversimplification but that's the general idea of how they would work.

[Natasha]

the smaller powerplants in power armor and most robot vehicles and similar, use power plants that are RTG's Radioisotope Thermal Generators, such as on space probes and similar today. the Big difference is that they have vastly improved thermal Electric components which means that they effectively skip the whole steam turbine generator cycle we have to use on todays nuclear powerplants, what happens instead is that they have a "solid state" component in the generators that turns the thermal difference between the "hot" core of the power plant, and the (relatively) cold surrounding environment into a way of generating power, they also have vastly improved radiation shielding which means a thin relatively light material stops radiation cold, that would take huge amounts of heavy material to absorb for us today.

actually that is literally how RTG's work. look up the seebeck effect.

the best part is that since the seebeck effect only requires a temperature gradient, it does not actually use any of the heat. so you could combine it with other systems that exploit the heat itself, like a Stirling engine, to generate additional power.

also, RTG type systems usually only produce small amounts of Alpha or Beta particles, since it is natural decay, which means you can get by with a layer of lead foil or in some cases, plastic for radiation shielding. (the main radiation contamination hazard is not radiation form operation, but rather the fact that if the device if damaged, the material inside will flake and spread, contaminating the soil and water around it. which will screw with the biology of anything that grows or consumes the contaminated soil, water, the plants that grow in it, or the animals that eat the plants.)

This is great stuff guys. This topic is one of the many things that I was always curious about but never got around to studying up on.

How much power could an RTG system generate? Something like a space probe has vastly different requirements than say a UAR-1 Enforcer robot. Anti-personnel lasers are going to suck down a lot of juice, not to mention railguns or plasma cannons.

Thanks for the info thus far, by the way. I'll have to do some more research and take notes for adding to the books.

the power generated by a RTG generator will vary tremendously depending on various design considerations.
1 what fuel is used the fuel used in a RTG determines things like heat temperature reached, how fast the fuel decays and how much fuel it takes to reach critical mass (if its possible to get there)

other factors would include the efficiency and type of power generation systems.

to give an example most nuclear reactors are if looked at a certain way a form of non solid state RTG.
1 it uses the nuclear power core to generate heat replacing the typically coal, gas, natural gas, or other burning material heat source, a geothermal power plant does a similar thing with capturing heat from "natural" earth underground heat sources.
2 it then uses that heat source to heat water and generate steam
3 it runs the steam through turbines to spin electric generators.

the RTG replaces steps 2 and 3 with solid state thermal electric components IE the temperature difference causes power to be generated.

it might be an oversimplification but that's the general idea of how they would work.

The rub is the efficiency. Nothing known so far is excitingly efficient.

[glitterboy2098]

For my games I've used an assumption that major nation states have some heavy duty Fusion plants, not just for power generation, but also to recycle or otherwise super science hand wave old fuel rods back into usable material and as part of the process for making it in the first place. I mean, we are talking about a setting where the armor on anything noteworthy that isn't straight magic has to be practically nano-forged or some other absurd process like that as every MD armor plate makes carbon-fiber nano-tubes look like baby material.

except that isn't how fusion works. fusion works by taking light elements (usually different isotopes of hydrogen) and smashing them together (through pressure created by magnetic fields or lasers), which causes some of it to convert to energy and the rest to be output as a slightly heavier element (helium, usually)

you can't even achieve fusion with anything heavier than Iron, and anything heavier than around carbon tends to use almost as much energy as it puts out (that is the origin of red giants and supernova's.. red giants are stars that have run out of hydrogen and are now fusing other stuff, and when they run out of anything lighter than iron, they collapse and explode)

however most 'expired' fuel elements are still 95%+ uranium.. they are expired because that 5% is enough to make chain reactions unreliable. but you can (through various processes involving some nasty chemicals) recycle the fuel elements, removing the byproducts (mostly short lived stuff that will be gone in a few years to a decade, but also small amounts of plutonium and the like) and letting you re use the rest to create a new fuel element. (not always rods.. some use pellets)

the smaller powerplants in power armor and most robot vehicles and similar, use power plants that are RTG's Radioisotope Thermal Generators, such as on space probes and similar today. the Big difference is that they have vastly improved thermal Electric components which means that they effectively skip the whole steam turbine generator cycle we have to use on todays nuclear powerplants, what happens instead is that they have a "solid state" component in the generators that turns the thermal difference between the "hot" core of the power plant, and the (relatively) cold surrounding environment into a way of generating power, they also have vastly improved radiation shielding which means a thin relatively light material stops radiation cold, that would take huge amounts of heavy material to absorb for us today.

actually that is literally how RTG's work. look up the seebeck effect.

the best part is that since the seebeck effect only requires a temperature gradient, it does not actually use any of the heat. so you could combine it with other systems that exploit the heat itself, like a Stirling engine, to generate additional power.

also, RTG type systems usually only produce small amounts of Alpha or Beta particles, since it is natural decay, which means you can get by with a layer of lead foil or in some cases, plastic for radiation shielding. (the main radiation contamination hazard is not radiation form operation, but rather the fact that if the device if damaged, the material inside will flake and spread, contaminating the soil and water around it. which will screw with the biology of anything that grows or consumes the contaminated soil, water, the plants that grow in it, or the animals that eat the plants.)

This is great stuff guys. This topic is one of the many things that I was always curious about but never got around to studying up on.

How much power could an RTG system generate? Something like a space probe has vastly different requirements than say a UAR-1 Enforcer robot. Anti-personnel lasers are going to suck down a lot of juice, not to mention railguns or plasma cannons.

Thanks for the info thus far, by the way. I'll have to do some more research and take notes for adding to the books.

the power generated by a RTG generator will vary tremendously depending on various design considerations.
1 what fuel is used the fuel used in a RTG determines things like heat temperature reached, how fast the fuel decays and how much fuel it takes to reach critical mass (if its possible to get there)

other factors would include the efficiency and type of power generation systems.

to give an example most nuclear reactors are if looked at a certain way a form of non solid state RTG.
1 it uses the nuclear power core to generate heat replacing the typically coal, gas, natural gas, or other burning material heat source, a geothermal power plant does a similar thing with capturing heat from "natural" earth underground heat sources.
2 it then uses that heat source to heat water and generate steam
3 it runs the steam through turbines to spin electric generators.

the RTG replaces steps 2 and 3 with solid state thermal electric components IE the temperature difference causes power to be generated.

it might be an oversimplification but that's the general idea of how they would work.

The rub is the efficiency. Nothing known so far is excitingly efficient.

most RTG's are designed to last a long time (using natural decay), but generate only tiny amounts of power. less than a kilowatt, usually. the ones fit on the voyager space probes for example used plutonium pellets as a heat source, would last for about 1000 some years, but only put out 154 watts of power. the one on the Cassini probe was a slightly more modern version.. same endurance, but could put out about 300 watts.

that said, if you aren't looking for endurance, you can get a fair bit of power.. the russian BES-5 system for example, was designed for orbiting radar recon satellites in the 1960's and 70's, and combined radio-thermal generator systems with a compact fast fission breeder reactor.. it used a fuel rod of enriched uranium. and while enriched, it was not weapons grade. (90% U-235, 10% U-238) the system massed only 53kg and put out 3 kilowatts of power.. and could do so for an estimated 250 years.

frankly, if you can build stuff that small but potent in the 60's it should be possible to build a 10-20 year endurance lightweight system putting out several megawatts using golden age tech.

[Natasha]

frankly, if you can build stuff that small but potent in the 60's it should be possible to build a 10-20 year endurance lightweight system putting out several megawatts using golden age tech.

I was just underscoring the point made that efficiency is a factor. If we're giving wattage an epic bump, then we may as well do the same for efficiency.

[keir451]

I could've sworn there was a version of Free Quebec that described the Gb's power plant as a "micro-fusion plant", but even from the days of the old RMB I played the power sources as fusion. The micro fusion plant from p.133 of Merc Ops just adds to what I do already.

[Library Ogre]

Fusion, IMO, solves a lot of problems that you'd have with fission.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Fusion, IMO, solves a lot of problems that you'd have with fission.

Except that pesky, constant need for reaction mass (fuel).

[Library Ogre]

Fusion, IMO, solves a lot of problems that you'd have with fission.

Except that pesky, constant need for reaction mass (fuel).

Which can be hydrogen, which is fairly plentiful. There's a degree of handwavium involved, of course, but I feel "Is essentially Mr. Fusion from Back to the Future" involves less handwavium than "Somehow never needs to dispose of fuel."

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Fusion, IMO, solves a lot of problems that you'd have with fission.

Except that pesky, constant need for reaction mass (fuel).

Which can be hydrogen, which is fairly plentiful. There's a degree of handwavium involved, of course, but I feel "Is essentially Mr. Fusion from Back to the Future" involves less handwavium than "Somehow never needs to dispose of fuel."

Sure, but that wasn't what the thread was asking.

It was asking "how do you explain what is in the books". Fusion -cannot- be the answer, as the power sources are listed as lasting years to decades of constant use, with no mention of any kind of fuel.

[eliakon]

Fusion, IMO, solves a lot of problems that you'd have with fission.

Except that pesky, constant need for reaction mass (fuel).

Which can be hydrogen, which is fairly plentiful. There's a degree of handwavium involved, of course, but I feel "Is essentially Mr. Fusion from Back to the Future" involves less handwavium than "Somehow never needs to dispose of fuel."

Even then you have issues with needing to have a hydrogen separator, and fuel tanks.
And Hydrogen is notoriously hard to store (its atoms are small enough that it can actually leak out through the inter atomic lattices of other materials meaning that you will lose Hydrogen. Not an issue when your moving or storing hundreds or thousands of cubic feet of material...
...but when your dealing with fuel tanks that are measured in cubic inches, or cubic centimeters then suddenly Hydrogen Permeability becomes a major issue.

And then of course there is the fact that unless your rewriting the entire game and all its materials you still have all those other pesky issues
Like the issue that Rifts nuclear plants run for X years before needing refueled (so that means that they are sealed with that many years of hydrogen already inside. Which considering the energy densities and volumes means that you will need fuel tanks larger than most of the things being powered...)
Or the issue that breached nuclear plants are a radioactive hazard, which most forms of fusion should not be.
Or of course the issue that fusion plants can't provide Depleted Uranium or Plutonium both of which are described as canonically coming from nuclear fuel...

Basically changing from fission to fusion doesn't solve everything. It simply replaces one set of problems with a different set of problems.