Re: Not always joking, it seems

<Willie.Mookie@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> An interesting feature of neutron mirror reactors - is that with a
> perfectly efficient mirror thre is no lower limit on critical mass.
> So, one can imagine lightbulb filament sized rods that get quite hot,
> when coated by such mirrors.

> Perfect mirrors are not known to exist, but damn good ones do.

Cite?  Neutrons are extremely penetrating.

> The whole thing sits in a vacuum tube and solid state PV cells tuned
> to the colors the filament produces convert the light to electricity
> with no moving parts.

Photovoltaic cells are very inefficient.  They can be made somewhat
less efficient if designed for a particular wavelength, but thermal
radiation, which is what you're talking about, is at many wavelengths.
An ordinary steam boiler would be a much more efficient way to turn
heat into electric power.

> Neutron reflectors and neutron sheilds of high efficiency are not
> presently known to exist - ...

Yes, for very basic physical reasons.  To a neutron, solid matter is
mostly empty space.  Neutrons are electrically neutral, and have a
very small capture cross-section.  Whatever your neutron mirror is
made of, it isn't matter as we know it.
-- 
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
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