On Jul 1, 2009, at 3:07 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Regarding the Russian superbomb:
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html
It produced 50 MT which works out to be . . .
209,000,000 MJ (I think -- 210 PJ)
The 209,000,000 above should be 290,000,000,000 I think, but the rest
is right.
One kT TNT = 4.184x10^6 MJ = 0.04655 grams of matter converted to
energy. Therefore, 50 MT TNT = 50,000 kT TNT = 2.092x10^11 MJ =
209.2x10^9 MJ = 209,200,000,000 MJ. That is a mere 2.3275 kg of
matter converted to energy, or the equivalent of about 1.16 kg of
antimatter exposed in this environment.
Gasoline is 121 MJ per gallon, so 50 MT TNT is (2.092x10^11 MJ)/(121
MJ/gal gas) = 1.729 x10^9 gallons of gas, i.e. 1.7 trillion gallons
of gas. At 390x10^6 gal per day consumption, that is 4.4 days worth
of gasoline for the USA.
Of other interest is that the classical CF reaction D+D -> He
produces 23.8x10^6 eV * Navogadro = 2.31x10^12 J per mole of
reactions, or per about 4 grams of deuterium. That's 5.77x10^5 MJ
per gram of D in a cold fusion reaction, or over 4700 gallons of gas
equivalent per gram of D.
A 100% effective 50 MT cold fusion bomb (if such were possible) would
consume about 360 kg of deuterium. Not a real or important number.
However, 1 g of hydrogen unexpectedly set off in lattice by the
volume effect of polarized x-rays would produce a 0.138 kT TNT
equivalent explosion. That might be pause to reflect.
Equivalent to 5 billion kg of gasoline or 1.6 billion gallons.
The U.S. consumes 390 million gallons of gasoline per day, so this
bomb would supply us with the equivalent of 4 days worth. Not so
impressive. Or appalling, depending on how you look at it. Imagine
what we are doing to the landscape releasing that much energy!
As I said before though, the size of this bomb illustrates the
immense energy density of fusion compared to other sources of
energy. It is 8 m x 2.1 m. (See the photos of the bomb at that
website.)
- Jed
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
