Heard anything? I came up with it, so like most things I come up with, someone's probably done it already without my knowledge. So far as I can figure, it uses the reaction itself for power instead of water vapor. I'm no expert, so that's all I could think of, but it seems like a much better way so far. Any ideas?

It would have to use the beta/alpha particles radiating off of it but it may work. I doubt it though. It may work if gamma rays could be used, but it would require a lot more reaction material.

You're right, gamma would need something like solar panels, as they are photons, the question is how much energy you could actually coax out of something like that. Whatever the case, I still have no clue how to get energy directly out of alpha or beta particles. Maybe we could use it to heat some liquid and get energy out of that, like with the water they usually use, except, not water, but something much more reliable, maybe something that creates an electric current whenever heat is applied. As I said, I'm not an expert, so I have no idea whether this is possible or not, that's why it's on a forum instead of in the patent office.

Well, you could use a bunch od buckytubes to absorb the gamma photons to make a turbine spin. Or you could use alpha particles(they're He-3) to directly spin turbines also without the use of nanotech. I can't think of a liquid that generates electricity when heated.

Turbines are bad, they make the thing bigger. No turbines, only solid state. No moving parts.
I never thought of using nanotubes, but now you mentioned, something like that may work.
And aren't beta particles just electrons? How hard would it be, I wonder, to just pick those up and send them wherever, on a nano level perhaps. Line it up with the tubes, maybe.

Well, without useing turbines I can't think of any way. What I was going to use the buckytubes for was line the turbine with them and then they'd absorb the gamma rays(they're 99.9998% black).

I laugh. Might it be possible to build a solar panel-like object, instead of the turbine? Then we can use the tubes to conduct the electricity instead of wires like in a normal panel.. They're so good at it anyway.

Well, the electron will fly out the holes in the tubes, but we could use a superconducting wire. Also in order to do that we would need to find a diffrent way to dope the sillicon in order to get it to knock electrons out (how a solar pannel works right now is using P and N doped sillicon).


/off-topic...
I wonder what happened to seraphim?

Wait, how do the electrons fly out? I thought the point of nanotubes is that they conduct, so wouldn't it just do that?

I thought you were meaning send the electrons down the 'empty' space in the senter of the tube ang having them bounce off of the atoms. The problem with that is that the electrons would hit the empty space on the tubes(where there is no electron shell and no nuclus) and fly out.

So let's use the wire. What material would you suggest?

A supercondicting material.

not meaning to interrupt your conversation, but if you could get a explosion small enough to push a piston you would get your alternative energy... :s

Which would be a internal combustion engine with nuke's. I doubt that you could get a engine small enought to be able to withstand the explosion and contain the radiation(Gamma rays would be of biggest concern). Also, It wouldn't be solid state, which is what we're looking for.

@ashk
ROTFL

@bob
Yes, i figured as much. You would need to supercool a metal to make it superconductive though, which is crap because is means you need more energy to do the cooling, as well as the amount of heat the reaction gives off anyway would mean the whole project would get proportionally out of hand. Any ways around that?

I think the Laws of thermodynamics and the laws of information prevent a way to get around that.

Well if we could 'get around' the laws of thermodynamics, we would be using perpetual motion instead of all this nuclear crap. What I meant was 'any way around using superconductive wires'.

Using non-superconducting wires. It's not as efficiant though.

It's not efficient enough. Right, this is hurting my brain, maybe I should just go back to programming, let the experts figure it out.

Good idea. "And now back to your regular programming"(Tv anouncer).