Chapter 3 – In which we hear from Zecora, but Luna has the last word
The Successful Nuclear Reactor Refuelling Party was a typical Pinkie Pie affair. Sugarcube Corner was quickly filled with streamers, balloons, and party foods; followed by nearly every pony in Ponyville. Fillies and colts rushed around laughing and dancing. Soon it was hard to move without bumping into a friend, or five.
I was not in the mood for a party. I wanted to get back to my quiet library, write a few draft reports, then reread a long list of books on ancient history, sub-atomic physics and the philosophy of sustainability. But if there was one thing I had learnt since I moved to Ponyville, it was that when I felt anxious about something, I should talk to my friends.
I bumped into Rainbow Dash first. “Hiya Twilight, whatya been up to today?”
“I've been watching Pinkie Pie refuel a nuclear reactor.”
“Hey, you've seen it? Pretty cool huh? The way it glows in the dark.”
“I'm rather concerned about its long term safety.”
“Don't you worry Twi. Nothing will happen that I can't deal with.”
Just how would Rainbow Dash deal with a nuclear meltdown? I decided not to ask.
Rarity walked over to join us. “I must say, I do wish Pinkie would engage in something a little more elegant. But at least it's not as visually intrusive as those awful wind turbines.”
“Now hang on there.” Applejack walked over to join us. “Have you met Pinkie's family?”
“I saw them this morning,” I said.
“Well then y'know they're as honest and hard workin' as any other farming family in Equestria. I'll tell you, it ain't easy being a farmer, if your farm hasn’t got any soil. But they've done a mighty fine job building up a sustainable business, and I'm not going to let any prissy unicorns cut off their trade just 'cause it ain't elegant enough.”
I backed away as Rarity and Applejack glared at each other, and bumped into Fluttershy. Now here was a pony who would understand my concerns.
“Fluttershy, how do you feel about there being a nuclear power plant so close to home?”
“I... well... I... erm...”
“If something went wrong, it would be terrible for all your animal friends.”
“Oh... I'm sure Pinkie would never let anything bad happen.”
“Well, I know she would never mean any harm. But... you remember the mirror pool incident?”
“Oh... I try not to think about that.”
This wasn't getting me anywhere, and the music was giving me a headache. I waved goodbye to my friends and shuffled out through the crowd of ponies and into the street outside. It was just after sunset, my favourite time of day. I shook my mane, breathing in the cool evening air, and trotted away from Sugarcube Corner. I then decided to take a short walk before returning to the library.
Once outside of Ponyville, and the hustle of crazy party ponies, my head cleared and I managed to get my thoughts into order. I stopped on the bridge, and looked down at the river flowing underneath. If there was a significant leak of radioactivity, I thought, it would kill all the fish and water creatures, and it would flow into Everfree and poison a unique and irreplaceable ecosystem.
Was I being entirely rational about this? Pinkie Pie was right – there were many other conceivable disasters which could strike Equestria. With all her safety systems, the risk of an incident must be very small. And if earth ponies had indeed run these reactors for many years with few problems...
But could she really be sure? It was such complicated technology. And accidents did tend to happen around her. If it got out of hoof, the consequences could be worse than anything we had seen. Well maybe not quite as bad as when Discord was running wild, but it would be a lot more difficult to clean up the mess.
Was there an alternative? There weren't enough unicorns in Ponyville to run the electricity grid on magic, as was done in Canterlot. Nor was there the space for the kind of cloud-top arrays which collected the solar energy which drove the Cloudsdale weather factory. If further hydro dams or wind turbines were impractical, was there another option? The Equestrian railways were powered by coal. But that was dirty and expensive – coal mining was the preserve of the bat ponies, who lived in dark tunnels. The only answer I could think of was to try to persuade the ponies of Ponyville to use less energy. But any effort to get them to cut their bath times, would probably be no more successful than my group to teach ponies about history.
If only there was somepony, I thought, who understood history and ancient magic, they might also understand the dangers of nuclear power. As soon as I had this thought, I cantered off into the Everfree forest. I needed to talk with Zecora.
Not long later I was sitting in Zecora's home. In between taking sips of herbal tea, I explained to her what I had learnt that day: my visit to the rock farm, and subsequent demonstration of nuclear fission. I then explained about the potential dangers of such processes. Zecora listened to me patiently. If the prospect of the Everfree forest being covered in a blanket of radioactive fallout concerned her, she made no sign to show it. Eventually I ran out of dialogue, and there followed a long silence before she replied.
“Here deep within the Everfree,
All Life exists in harmony,
A fragile balance of many forces,
Our power comes from natural sources,
Nature thrives in this wild zone,
Where clouds move, all on their own.
In Ponyville, outside the border,
Life follows a different order,
Ponies and wild critters live together,
Pegasi patrols control the weather,
And rock farmers follow tradition,
Engineering nuclear fission.”
“That's how it is,” I said. “But if something went wrong, it would be disastrous for both Ponyville and Everfree. You know the history of the Incantatem Fissio Individuuma?” I sipped my tea and waited for her to reply. It occurred to me that I had never asked Zecora how old she was. When we first met, I had assumed she was just a little older than my friends and I, but the more I got to know her, the more I began to suspect she was actually far older.
“Your fears I can well understand,
A nuclear blaze would kill this land,
As a tool of war, it is unsurpassed,
Deadlier than any a magical blast,
Yet the terror that hit distant Neighpon,
Was over and done, many years gone,
And now, millennia hence,
Time has redeemed the offence,
Wildlife has returned to the place,
Poison is but a tiny trace.”
I nodded. “That was a long time ago, and nopony with any sense would do such a thing now. But with all this nuclear material around – what if it fell into the wrong hooves? Pinkie's family assure me they don't farm weapon-grade rocks, and it’s not so easy to enrich it. But can they really be sure? And this reactor – if it were to overheat, the fuel rods could melt and it could get out of control and lead to a major leak of radioactivity. Or worse, there could be an explosion which would spread fallout all around the region.” I realized I could now talk in a much calmer manner than I had done earlier with Pinkie.
“Meltdown would be a catastrophe,
I see you cannot rest worry-free,
When Pinkie claims it is safe and secure,
She fails to leave you feeling so sure,
For all the safeguards she can invent,
There will remain fear of an accident.”
“I can't understand how relaxed Pinkie, and my friends, seem about it. I mean, I've explained the dangers, and they seem to comprehend it, but they just don't take it in.”
“Why should they feel any unease?
Who would harm my little ponies?
Timberwolves, changelings, or Discord return,
All are beaten or befriended in turn,
With Celestia, Luna and you in charge,
Nopony fears radioactive discharge.”
She was right. Equestria had been in serious peril many times in my lifetime, but nopony was ever really scared. They all felt safe and secure, knowing that Celestia, or more recently, my friends and I, had taken care of Nightmare Moon, Discord, the changelings, and many other risks. But could I keep them safe from a nuclear incident? Should I try to protect them from Pinkie Pie?
“What I need to decide now, is what I should do about it.” I knew Zecora well enough to know she would not give me a clear instruction, but I wanted to hear what she would say. It was reassuring talking to her, even if she did not tell me anything I did not already know.
“If you have the power to find a solution,
You should follow through with such a resolution,
But if it lies beyond your ability,
What you cannot change, you must let be,”
“I know. That’s good advice. I don't think I can solve this. Well I can't provide Ponyville with a cheap, clean, risk-free fuel source. But should I try to persuade them not to run a reactor?”
“If you believe it is a risk to a friend,
It would be wrong not to bring it to an end.
As a princess, you have the power of the crown,
To order them to halt, and force a shutdown,”
That was the reality I faced. I could order Pinkie to decommission her reactor. It would upset her. For about five minutes, until she thought of something even crazier to do. Cloudy Quartz, Igneous Rock, and her sisters, would always think they had offended me with poor hospitality. And the Ponyville residents would sulk for weeks about rationed hot water and electricity. But all that was far preferable to the fallout from a nuclear accident. What should I do? Think about it of course. But the easy thing would be to keep putting off deciding anything, and then what if there was an incident? I looked back at my friend. “What would you do Zecora?”
“As I know you have understood,
I heat my home by burning wood,
A simple and sustainable way,
To get me by from day to day,
I take this approach of my free will,
But it would never work for all of Ponyville,
If ever it should come to pass,
That Ponyville switched to biomass,
I fear they would cut down every tree,
Then what would become of Everfree?
And so although it's not for the likes of me,
I’d rather they use atomic energy.”
Would that happen? Surely we could manage with a bit less energy, without needing to cut down the forest. But could I be sure of that? I envied Zecora. Living out here in Everfree, in harmony with her surroundings. Whatever happened, nopony would blame her. No wonder she was always so calm and relaxed about everything.
“I'll tell you a tale, to help you understand,
Of darkest Zebrica, which was my homeland,
A once prosperous land, and fertile too,
Where the number of zebras and ponies grew,
Yet tragedy would strike our society,
When we outgrew our supply of energy,
In search of fuel, we felled tree after tree,
This caused a problem which we could foresee,
But by greed or need, we missed the hint,
And failed to cut our carbon hoofprint,
When the trees were gone, the wind blew away the dirt,
What was once fertile, turned to a dry desert,
The land gave us neither fruit nor grass,
And we were forced to disperse en mass,
Since then I have travelled far, by land and sea,
And finally settled here in Everfree.”
I bowed my head slightly before the zebra mage. Zecora had experienced tragedy and loss far beyond anything I knew. But she always remained cheerful. We sat and finished our tea in silence, then, knowing I had learnt all I could from her for one day, I thanked Zecora, left her tree and walked back to Ponyville through the dark forest.
I walked into the library and stared at the pile of unread books on my desk by the window. It had been a long day, and I hadn't made any progress on my planned research. But I had learnt a lot. I felt I should send a report to Princess Celestia, and was about to call Spike to take down a letter, but I then realized I wasn't at all sure what I would say. I ran through a few possible lines in my head:
Dear Princess Celestia
Today I learnt a lot of details about nuclear physics and reactor engineering...
No that wasn't the way to start.
Today I learnt that you sometimes have to trust your friends, even if you find some of the things they do worrying...
No that wasn't right either.
Today I learnt that managing energy resources in Equestria is a difficult challenge and there is no ideal way...
No.
The truth was I wasn't sure exactly what I had learnt and this was just all too confusing to put into a letter. I would have to talk to the princess about it. Well, why not do that? I could just fly over to Canterlot for a princess-to-princess chat.
I walked out onto the balcony, spread my wings, and leapt off into the night, making for Canterlot Castle. It was a cold wind blowing against my face, but I pulled my scarf tight around my neck, and after pumping my wings for a few minutes I was pleasantly warm and enjoying the thrill of night flying. I really should do this more often, I thought to myself. Flying in the daylight is completely different. Although thanks to Rainbow Dash's coaching, I have got much better than I was, I still feel so self-conscious. Every time I fly past a farm, ponies come out and stare up, pointing their hooves at me, and saying to their foals 'That's Princess Twilight Sparkle. If you're a good little filly, and do what mother says, and work hard at school, and be true to your friends, then you can grow up to be like her'. But in the dark, there was none of that. I was invisible.
Flying higher, I stared at the stars, smiling at the constellations like old friends; then looked down at the ground, and the twinkling lights from villages and isolated farmsteads, no doubt powered by their own subterranean nuclear reactors. Soon, the magically illuminated towers of Canterlot, perched so majestically on the cliff edge, came into view. I wondered where I should land. Should I glide down to the gate and let the guards have the satisfaction of saluting me? Or just fly straight into the castle? I decided on the latter option, but as I came closer to the parapets, I remembered that Celestia would be asleep at this late hour. A better plan would be to visit the doughnut shop, and have a chat with Joe, and see Celestia in the morning. I decided to do one lap around the castle. Then, as I passed the tallest tower, I spotted another pony awake. Princess Luna was standing on her balcony, surveying the night sky. I flicked a wing to divert my course towards her.
“Twilight Sparkle,” cried the Princess of the Night as I landed beside her. “An unexpected meeting. But you are very welcome. What brings you to Canterlot on this fair night?”
“Greetings Luna,” I replied, “I came to talk with Celestia about something that I have learnt. Sort of. And something which I'm not sure of. And as she is still asleep, maybe we could...”
“Speak! There are still several hours until dawn, and some conversation would be most agreeable. I will gladly hear of that which is troubling you.”
I smiled at Luna's somewhat formal speech, which, at this late hour, on the castle tower roof, under the stars, seemed oddly appropriate. I sat down, and began to tell of my day's adventures. How I had learnt of earth pony atomic energy; my visit to the rock farm, and the Sugarcube Corner reactor; and then my conversation with Zecora; and my but-I-still-don't-know-quite-what-to-make-of-it-all feelings. Luna listened patiently, occasionally nodding or smiling, but not interrupting. At the end of my story, there was a long pause, while she looked up at her night sky, in thought, before replying.
“So you trust your earth pony friend, and she has assured you that her activities are not as dangerous as you fear. You understand why she runs her reactor, and you are not in a position to give her a realistic alternative. Yet still you feel uneasy about the whole thing, and you just wish she would find another way.”
After the conversations I had had earlier in the day, I was somewhat taken aback that Luna could understand and articulate my feelings so quickly and accurately. “Do you feel the same way?” I asked.
Luna nodded. She looked back up at the stars for a moment before continuing. “It has been the subject of a long standing... difference of opinion... between my sister and I. One which goes back over a thousand years. I tried hard to make her see, but without success.”
“I don't understand,” I said. “Does Celestia support nuclear power?”
“How do you think she makes her sun so infernally bright?”
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Okay. Tell me that punchline at the end is not what the entire fic was building up to. Tell me there's some other sort of resolution here. Tell me you've got another chapter tucked away despite the complete tag.
Still a good joke to end on. But please say it's not the end.
Umm... Okay, where is the rest of it?
Hmm, seems like a lot of Twilight's problems is basically 'Yeah yeah, they say they're professionals, but I don't trust 'em!'
Hmm, I wonder how close they are to inventing working Nuclear Fusion plants? I mean, those use even less fuel than Fission, most able to be gotten from water, and the most dangerous waste is helium – which Pinkie would probably use for balloons. And correct me if I'm wrong, but a Nuclear Fusion plant would be impossible to meltdown just because of how Fusion works.
Oh boy, now Twilight's gonna freak. Celestia dabbles in dark magic! Gasp!
Complete? But, what about Luna and Twilight discussing Nuclear Fusion? No... it cannot be! NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I thought that was a pretty good ending to the story, myself.
Good
That ending. Didn't see that coming. But she's right. All stars run on fusion which is a relative to fission.
Good one.
Luna is against Nuclear Power!
"The night shall last forever! For your safety of course..."
3690593
... You realize Celestia taught Twilight dark magic before Twilight went to the Crystal Empire. Hatecasting, dark magic, whichever.
3691104 I was referencing to the first chapter where Twilight ponders how there are rumors of Celestia knowing a nuclear fusion spell, and finding it hard to imagine Celestia using such 'dark magic'.
3690593
na ... Twilight just has "not in my back yard syndrome".
Thats when people want something ... just not within sight of their back yard. Nuke power? Yes... just not in my back yard. Put it in some one elses back yard, out of sight, where i can get the benefits without the negatives.
3690593
Pretty much. Any significant change in any of the dozens of variables making up the Fusion reaction causes it to fall flat on its face and shut down.
If that was the punch line the entire fic was building up to, I am completely okay with it.
That last line was perfect!
Wish there was more though.
Well... This chapter seems to promote nuclear energy less than the previous ones, though there is one point that confuses me. Your equestrian technology resembles ours very strongly, so why would they need a local power plant? It's not like there would be a need for proximity to provide the energy, so why wouldn't it be possible to build wind farms or solar panel fields away from Ponyville in an unsettled area?
And since they seems to be able to think up and create possibilities that are beyond our capabilities for disposing of nuclear waste, they are surely able to overcome the problems with other energy sources too.
The end made me laugh though, even if it was a bit incorrect.
That's the ending?
Yep, worth it. Amusing, but in those small subtle ways that seem to have been lost to modern entertainment.
I wouldn't mind seeing a more serious continuation of this theme, though. Ponies with nuclear power is an idea I like.
There really is no ultimate answer to the nuclear question. Something could go wrong, and if it does, then we're all up Fallout Creek without a paddle, but so long as the reactor's built well and the engineers know what they're doing, the odds of a mishap are quite comfortably low. It's a question of risk versus reward.
Though part of me can't help but suspect that the ultimate failsafe for the Ponyville reactor is Pinkie exerting her will on the atomic pile and stabilizing it with earth pony magic. Which would actually be really cool.
In any case, thank you for another fun story of ponies, science, and the impact that science has in their world and ours. And remember:
Next time the Tree of Harmony goes inactive, they have a Plan B.
I admit to laughing out loud at the ending. A lot.
You can't end it like that! Fusion is nothing like Fission, they're almost opposites really. I also have some issues with some other things.
It was mentioned earlier that wwind farms failed because pegasi would run into them. This seems a rediculous reason to me. Yes wind farms in our world do have the issue of birds and such flying into them, but seriously, just tell the pegasi not to fly there. Fluttershy could even tell the birds not to fly there. We can't tell birds not to fly in the area, they can, for pony's sake.
The other thing that I had a small issue with was why didn't Twilight look for a magical way to destroy nuclear waste? It seems for over a mellenium they've had magic that can perform fission, if they can do that why not some sort of magic to turn nuclear waste into something harmless.Or failing that, why not teleport it to the Sun? (I always thought we should send our nuclear waste to the Sun but getting it there would be too difficult for us, not for unicorns who can teleport things though).I say this because the waste is the main problem with fission reactors, if it weren't for that, I'd be all for nuclear energy. Plus if there were a magical way to transform nuclear material into a harmless substance (or teleport it to the Sun) that could be used in the event of a meltdown as well. Basically if all else fails, eliminate the core.
3690593 Yes Fusion plants are a great idea, but even they create nuclear waste of a sort. It's not the fuel but the linig of the core, over the course of it's operation it become heavily irradiated. I believe the waste from core linings is only dangerous for about ten percent of the time that fission waste is, so it's still a huge improvement. Also, yes they can't meltdown, but they can explode, funnily enough it's the magnetic containment systems that might explode if their cooling went wrong not the core itself.
Also, yes I know I just got all science-y and left a huge comment on a story that was made for a punchline, that's just how I roll.
3692253 Irradiated by what?
3692259 The core. Even in a Fusion reaction lots of neutrons are buzzing about in there. Ideally you want them all to reflect back into the core, but no material can do that, all materials will eventually absorb and become saturated with neutrons. That's when the core lining needs to be replaced, and that's what creates the waste in Fusion reactors.
3692281 *confused* In... in fusion? Neutrons? You sure? I'm looking at a diagram of a fusion reaction right now, the only thing that comes out are protons. I mean, I guess I can see the gamma rays causing irradiation, but neutrons are more of fission's style.
That ending!
3692287 Well I admit I'm recalling this from an article I read a fair while ago. I'm pretty sure it was neutrons but i could be wrong, I am sure that the core lining becomes dangerously radioactive and needs to be periodically replaced though.
Thats a heck of a punch line.
Oh, and dont forget, Uranium is a fossil fuel with all the problems of limited energy supply in total of all other fossil fuels, except the only way it can be mass produced is in teh cores of supernovae, then spend several hundred million years drifting, condensing etc.
Heres a simple value. If Everyone on Earth used nothing but nuclear power, from Fast Breeders, so that All the uranium could be used as fuel, not just teh enrichment fraction, at teh same rate as teh average American, then the uranium resources would last about 50 years. 150 at best. We have, depending on measurements, between 150 and 500 years of coal, and 250-1000 years of methane clathrates.
Would you like to live on a planet whose atmosphere has an oxygen content of 10%? Or lower? Where do you think all that clathrate came from in the first place?
Houses in Norway can be built to be net energy Zero. Houses in the USA on average can get multiple times the incident energy over a year. If you design a house to be 105% energy efficient, instead of 95%, then you only need to spend an extra 10%, and end up turning the suburbs into power stations.
As for the NIF, it actually works, but dont forget, the lasers its built with are 1980s technology, big, bulky, slow, delicate. Look up Laser Sparkplugs for cars. Then realise its far cheaper to make a million of those, that only need the space of the ignition chamber, instead of the double tennis courts needed for the origional Tron array.
The reason renweables cost so much, is because we are like children with paper windmills. We just aint building the things Big enough.
You want a wave machine? how about 100 metres long, 2 foot thick plus reinforced concrete, and weiging 30 Thousand tons, apiece, generating a seasonally variable 50-150 Megawatts, mostly in winter. Now, you need to start producing them by the hundreds, which would keep Every ship yard on the planet occupied permanetly, all that employment, all that union power, why do you think the UK goverment swapped the reports between Salters Duck, and nuclear. Nukes couldnt compete.
Dont forget, if we dont look for alternatives while energy is cheap, and we can afford to waste time looking, then by the time we need alternatives, energy will be far too expensive to waste on such frivolities as research and development.
Fortunately, so far, there are other countries that can do such RnD instead, switch over to cheaper sources, then charge a fortune due to market forces to those countries that dont have such capabilities.
If PWR need power to drive cooling water pumps to stop the reactor melting After it has been shut down, then by definition it cannot be a safe design. Especially given Project Pluto.
First Rule. You WILL Lose Power.
After that you are following the laws of reality, which are often not what the operators wish they were.
3692784 SCIENCE!
Me: "Ah, fuck."
According to this, Celestia made the sun. From what, though? The sun is much more massive than the Earth, and a "earth sized" sun will burn up so quickly you wouldn't have time to have a nice chat with Luna. That's already disregarding how the sun works on fusion, not fission.
So assuming Celestia has the ability to create mass out of nowhere. That already requires lots of energy, so might as well just release it directly from where the sun would be, if she were able to create the sun in the first place. No risk of a solar collapse followed by a supernova that way, right?
I don't know what to think of the last line...
3692287 3692623
It depends on the fusion reaction in use. Stars fuse protium, the most abundant hydrogen isotope, and the only one with no neutrons. The problem is that this reaction actually doesn't generate that much energy! It's only due to the vast volume of a stellar core that a star produces so much power. For protium fusion to be a viable terrestrial power source, one would need to generate temperatures 10-100 times that found in the core of the sun—15,000,000 K—in order to boost the energy output; something that is well beyond reach today. So one needs to look at fusion reactions that will produce significant amounts of energy at lower temperatures. The most promising candidate reactions for terrestrial fusion power utilize reactants that contain one or more neutrons, such as the hydrogen isotopes deuterium (with one neutron) and tritium (with two). The neutrons freed from these isotopes by fusion of their nuclei are what bombard the interior of a fusion reactor, rendering it radioactive, though not to the degree nor volumes of fissile waste.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion#Criteria_and_candidates_for_terrestrial_reactions
3692784
You'd think Equestrians would use a pebble-bed design instead of a PWR. I mean, if they're farming rocks, why not grow pebbles?
3692784
I think you're confusing the Shiva laser (seen in TRON) with the NIF laser. The former was a 30TW proof-of-concept design, while the latter is its 500TW second-generation descendant focusing on a 2mm diameter sphere. That's some 50,000+ times more powerful than a laser spark plug (100GW/cm^2) before taking into account that that 500TW is the 20% (at best) that reaches the target. I don't think you're going to achieve much in the way of space savings using laser spark plugs once you figure in the necessary equipment to precisely focus the minimum quarter-million, finely frequency-tuned laser diodes needed at that power level, each outfitted with an infrared to ultraviolet frequency converter (50% efficiency loss right there), fire them with the precision of timing necessary, and—most importantly—cool them. In the future? Perhaps, but the NIF is doing inertial confinement fusion research with the means at hand today. If you have knowledge of how to construct a 1TW X-ray laser diode, the scientific community would love to hear from you!
As for delicate, Shiva withstood a 5.5 magnitude earthquake that sheared fist-sized bolts in its facility, and yet was up and running again a month later.
3693374 Ah, okay, thank you for clearing that up!
3693580
Ah, sorry, I was using teh announced values for laser spark plugs of which output frequency, UV, energy per pulse per spark plug, and that it runs in a high pressure water coled enviroment, car engine head.
The Spark plug also had a very similar pulse duration, so given its already within an order of magnitude, Id say it was easier to work on a small bench mount unit for tweaking, tuning, modifying, than on something the size of an office block.
That, and I was thinking of using a million spark plugs, cos they would be cheap, and vastly mass produced, assembled in swap out, tuned, ajustable modules, taken from the astronomy dynamic adaptives.
NIF only fires once every few hours to allow the lasers to cool down. Sparkplugs run constantly at ultra high fire rates in extremely hostile conditions. All they need to do, after pulse formation, targeting etc (yes I know.. All)
Is simplify teh target by geting rid of the Holraum. then they can claim the pulse pellet launcher for the fire rate, speed.
Coming up on the outside is ITER, Even larger, massive, more expensive, whose stability relies on shere brute force computational capacity, which is getting explosively cheaper. Theyve gone from essentially microsecond pulses, to 30 second stability in 20 years. Its reasonable to expect them to increase teh computed dynamic stability similarly in future, So, theres that 20 years again to fusion.
People forget just how powerful computers will be in 20 years, but leave that till later.
Im more intrested in thin film flexible direct energy conversion designs, such as solar sails with optical to microwave, or ground sheets with optical to DC at 70% efficincy.
ARG.. Pebble bed reactors. I blame the medication for forgetting those, because having the pebbles grown on a rock farm, as in crystalisation, means the Pies can create designs only found in the most fevered Earth researchers dreams. Such as xray and gamma ray reflecting, containing meta material coatings, or even neuron reflectors.
I know of one neutronium containing forcefield used in research, but it only works with neutrons at extremely low speed. Pass through 2 metres of liquid hydrogen, reflected upwards by a sheet of graphite, then slowed ballistically by gravity, before being captured at the top by an evernacent field laser trap. If anything, it should be one of the coldest places in the universe.
Dont forget, if you dont know its impossible, at least you will try.
And occasionally, youll succeed.
This wasn't as good as your stories about the rainbow and the speed of sound. In many places it seemed forced and seemed to verge too far into exposition. Overall, it isn't your best work and, frankly, becomes boring and preachy in places.
You manage to get the various characters right and I certainly find the thought of a Zebra diaspora due to some ecological collapse in their homeland fascinating. However, ultimately, the story suffers from not really having any point. It lacks a clearly defined narrative and basically is just "My Little Pony Explains Nuclear Fission Technology". Thus it comes across as stale and forgettable.
Sorry about that.
Next chapter:
Twilight starts a picket line and demands the reactor shut down!
Though, nice line for Luna, I think.
~Skeeter The Lurker
3690593
It really is unfortunate that we can't get Fussion working properly- all that extra helium would be a great boon to the electronics industry.
And the end is a bit jarring. Just... 'oh, we're done now?'
3691277
You! Hi
I'm a bit disappointed that Luna got cut short just for the sake of a joke without actually voicing a well-reasoned argument like pretty much every other character introduced...still, this was interesting from start to finish, so I guess I can't complain too much.
3694288
YOU! How DARE You show up here after what you did.... whatever that was.
3694582
I'd say I'm sorry for that, but I'm kinda not...and he really did look better once we were done with the biscuit mixer.
3691670
Transporting power has leaks.
I will say one thing. Why isn't all of Equestria's power gotten through the sun, via the photothaumatic effect? With magic, they've got an almost guaranteed 99% or higher efficiency rate. Solar trumps all.
3695631 Because ponies are stupid, that's why!
3693580 >>> If you have knowledge of how to construct a 1TW X-ray laser diode, the scientific community would love to hear from you!>>>
I think the guy from Ancient Aliens might be able to help with that! He's in contact with the Greys!
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3695631
Yes, but only if the distance is high.
But yes. Photothaumatic FTW!
3695631
Except for emotion like willpower, rage, love, hope, fear, greed, compassion and others, but I digress, all nuclear incidents in the past were caused by the power hungry idiots that are Americans and faulty equipment, and people who didn't know what they were doing.
But I digress the way that they approach the concept is admirable, and one alternate source would be chaos magic but dizzy would have nothing to do with it
3696197
What the fuck are you blathering about?
3696240 it was listing typically strong emotions that are often channeled through psychic or xenoscientific tools, for example, an engine powered by the riders will to move.
in response to the comment i responded to, that would make power completely up to pegasi and certain other specimens, and even if you had powerstations that would have no weather whats so ever, that would lead to ugly dead patches, which would break the balance even more with nature
, not the three races. and on most earths, the reasons i listed will be put into more detail
)
AMERICANS
.)
? and that is just nuclear!
chernobyl: faulty parts
three mile island: americans and untaught technitions(americans)
hiroshima: faulty parts, procedures, and people who did not know what they were doing(americans again
the a-bomb: americans who did not double check the news and a failure to translate right when the prime minister said we surrender, it was translated as we do not surrender(BUCKING.
see where i'm going
I'm really not sure what to make of this story. Luna's line at the end was not actually funny because it was
spoiledrevealedhinted at in chapter 1 that Celestia knows about this magic. Also there is a huge difference between running a massive fusion reactor 93 million miles away and having a fission reactor in your sub-basement. For one, the sun has no buttons to press for Pinkie Pie.I quite liked Twilight's visit to the rock farm and all the details you put in ("Break glass in case of paraspirtes"? Hilarious!), but overall there was little else, especially in chp. 3.
3699604
Still blathering.
3692287
Fusion, in the form of H to He, does not produce neutrons, but that's not what we'd be using, and even if we somehow were, there are always side-reactions. The temperatures and pressures needed for H->He are simply too high. In fact, they're so high that not even the sun can use pure H to He. It uses something called The Carbon Cycle, and that has the problem that one of the steps is "Wait for this radioactive element to decay" which takes decades on average and I do believe that that step also produces neutron radiation. All the fusion reactions with reasonable requirements either produce neutron radiation as a by-product, or have other reactions that take place with the materials involved that do produce neutrons, except for one or two that I don't remember right now, but which have other problems. Wastewise, it's still WAY better than fission, though.