Yep aircraft will be the big win. Repower Concorde with LENR heated engines and fly anywhere in the world without stopping, though you will probably not be allowed to fly supersonic over land. No vapour trails and no NOx production so other than noise it is a perfect solution. Mach 3 is probably the limit as it is difficult to cool without fuel to dump the heat into and the stagnation temperature of air at Mach 3 is 400°C so probably couldn't go much faster with a 700°C LENR heat source.
A concorde LENR plane needs about 300MW of heat, which if we believe Mr Rossi and 100kW/kg needs or about 3000kg of nickel powder, even if it was only 10kW/kg it would still probably be feasible. Really small supersonic planes might also be acceptable high over land as the boom is linked strongly to power output and height. On 6 February 2012 20:56, jean guy moreau <[email protected]> wrote: > How about heating air for aviation ? > > JG Moreau > > ------------------------------ > Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2012 18:08:29 +0000 > > Subject: Re: [Vo]:Feb 1st 2012 National Research Council News Release & > Report: NASA's 16 top technical challenges for the next 5 years > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > > > There is simply no way that LENR will be useful for getting stuff to orbit > - unless it is used as a method for making cheaper chemical rocket fuels, > and even then rocket fuel costs are only a few % of a launch. > - LENR power density is far too low (a 3500kg SSME delivers 9GW of power, > ie 2.5MW/kg) > - The temperature (<700°C) is too low to heat hydrogen sufficiently to > give a competitive specific impulse to match the density and performance of > other chemical fuels. With LENR/LH2 at 1000°C you might get to 6000m/s > exhaust velocity but LOX/LH2 can do 4700m/s and is a far more dense and > cheap fuel combination than using all expensive LH2 (a tremendously bulky > and expensive fuel requiring enormous well insulated tanks). > > However LENR will be tremendously useful for moving stuff around slowly in > orbit and interplanetary space using various types of high Isp plasma > drives. > > > On 5 February 2012 21:06, Chemical Engineer <[email protected]> wrote: > > ** > > * > http://ns1.nianet.org/workshops/pdfs/Olds%20LaRC%20Workshop%20Presentation%20Final.pdf > * > > * > * > > *Page 14 shows an LENR thermal propulsion prototype from 2009 - 18 GW!* > > LENR Rocket > Fully Reusable SSTO Vehicle powered by Low Energy Nuclear Reactions > (LENR) Propulsion > Reactor Power > Payload > LOX-Augmented Nuclear Thermal Rocket > (H2) with LENR Reactor > 18 GW > 20,000 lbs to LEO > > On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 9:04 AM, Chemical Engineer <[email protected]>wrote: > > I will interpret "Nuclear Thermal Propulsion" to including LENR... 5 > years would not be too bad for something not on the near horizon 1 year > ago. Hopefully we can have a residential HVAC/Generator before that or at > least something to heat our coffee. > > http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=13354 > > -- radiation mitigation for human spaceflight; > -- guidance, navigation, and control; > -- optical systems; > -- long-duration crew health; > -- solar power generation; > -- high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy technologies; > -- environmental control and life support systems; > -- electric propulsion; > -- detectors and focal planes; > -- instruments and sensors; > -- fission power generation; > -- lightweight and multifunctional materials and structures; > -- nuclear thermal propulsion; > -- entry, descent, and landing thermal protection systems; > -- active thermal control of cryogenic systems; and > > > >
