Jason’s first reaction was absolute disbelief: Is it really possible to directly utilize uncontrollable nuclear fusion?
However, given the current unsolvable engineering bottlenecks surrounding magnetic confinement and controlled nuclear fusion, humanity simply had no other viable path forward...
This was a massive theoretical constraint. No one knew how many centuries it would take before a once-in-a-generation genius appeared to solve these fundamental physics problems in one fell swoop. Under these circumstances, did humanity really have to stubbornly bash their heads against the wall and continue down the dead-end path of "magnetic confinement"?
The scientists were absolutely not that stupid!
Since controlled nuclear fusion was too difficult and delicate, they had come up with another, completely unhinged idea...
Uncontrolled nuclear fusion!
This was the very same desperate, feasible solution that the Great Sage of the Nix Civilization had proposed right before his death. "Uncontrolled nuclear fusion" was something that humanity had already perfected decades ago... wasn’t that just a standard hydrogen bomb?
Why be so stubbornly fixated on the word "controllable"? Couldn’t they just utilize the raw energy of a hydrogen bomb detonation?! If they could somehow harness the explosive yield of a hydrogen bomb and convert it into electricity, wouldn’t that technically make it controllable?
This was... what these esteemed physicists actually believed!
Jason felt a cold chill run down his spine. For the first time since taking command, he felt that the world was simply too insane.
But as the conversation continued, he quickly learned that... it wasn’t just this new world that was crazy!
This exact same insane idea had already existed back on Earth!
During the height of the Cold War nuclear arms race in the 1960s and 70s, both the Soviet Union and the United States had seriously discussed this exact plan. Their idea was to excavate a massive underground cavern deep within isolated mountains, repeatedly detonate nuclear warheads inside the cave, and then use the resulting thermal energy to generate steam for electricity...
"According to our historical calculations, just 1,000 nuclear bombs with a small yield of 3,000 tons of TNT each would be enough to comfortably power a medium-sized city... Based on our current industrial capacity in the Aegis Industrial Complex, mass-producing 100,000 of those per year would not be a problem."
Professor Hao Yu smiled grimly. "Of course, that was a primitive plan from seventy years ago. There were still many engineering and radiation problems that hadn’t been solved at the time, so the superpowers ultimately abandoned it."
"Nuclear bombs were extremely expensive to produce back then, and using them for civilian power generation was completely putting the cart before the horse economically. Moreover, large-scale mass production of nuclear weapons on Earth could easily lead to nuclear leaks. If those warheads fell into the hands of terrorists, the consequences would be apocalyptic..."
"But for the Federation, this shouldn’t be a problem at all. There aren’t any terrorists in our unified society on the Noah..."
"We can manufacture the nuclear bombs to be bigger and stronger, and we can replace those primitive underground caverns with massive spherical reactor containment vessels, which would allow us to safely collect a much higher percentage of the energy."
Jason felt another chill run down his spine as he looked at Hao Yu’s eerie, excited smile. This old professor had become increasingly unhinged since regaining his youth.
He was willing to bet that the old man had been secretly obsessing over this insane plan for a very long time!
But surprisingly, the other scientists in the room quickly voiced their support, especially the normally conservative Dr. Felix, who seemed fully onboard with the idea.
Could it really be feasible?
The more Jason thought about it, the more bizarre and terrifying it seemed, but he forced himself to remain calm and asked a series of rapid-fire questions: "Is this plan actually viable? Have you rigorously verified the math? You can’t just decide the course of our entire civilization based on a mad science whim!"
"And... where does the tritium required for the hydrogen bomb explosion come from? Are we talking about helium-3 bombs? Or our new tetra-hydrogen bombs? The explosive yield would be absolutely massive, wouldn’t it? What about the sheer energy cost of the laser ignition systems?"
"...Have you even considered the safety issues? What if the reactor vessel breaches and explodes?"
The scientists looked at each other. In truth, they had been debating this exact plan for quite some time, and mathematically, it seemed far more reliable than continuing to chase the ghost of magnetic confinement.
However, they knew Jason’s rapid questions hit the nail on the head. As a qualified leader, his cautious, skeptical attitude was exactly what the Federation needed.
One of the senior experts immediately pulled out a thick report and handed it over. "Captain, we have compiled the relevant theoretical data regarding your questions."
"You are correct; utilizing uncontrolled nuclear fusion is not something that can be achieved overnight. It actually presents several extreme engineering difficulties and requires three core conditions to be met before it can even be considered viable."
"First, our research and manufacturing of nuclear weapons must be incredibly hyper-efficient. The total energy required to manufacture a single small-yield nuclear bomb must be far less than the total energy released by the bomb’s detonation. If the net energy return is negative, then using nuclear weapons to generate electricity would be a complete joke!"
Jason nodded slowly. "That’s true."
Nuclear bombs were not ordinary artillery shells; their manufacturing costs were astronomically high. For example, manufacturing a standard fission atomic bomb required highly enriched uranium-235, and the complex centrifugation and purification of that enriched uranium alone required massive amounts of electrical power. In the old days, the energy spent enriching the uranium was often more than the energy released by the final explosion!
Besides, it was impossible for human engineering to capture 100% of the energy released by a nuclear detonation. Efficiently capturing and utilizing even 10% or 20% of the blast’s thermal and kinetic energy would be considered a miraculous engineering achievement!
Therefore, if the energy spent manufacturing the bomb was greater than the energy successfully captured, the entire power generation project would be a catastrophic failure.
Seeing Jason deep in thought, the expert continued, "Secondly, the raw materials used for these nuclear bombs must be incredibly abundant and cheap. They absolutely cannot rely on scarce isotopes like tritium, and preferably not helium-3 either... otherwise, the fuel supply will be completely unsustainable for long-term planetary power."
"We still have a stockpile of helium-3 mined from the Moon, but the reserves aren’t particularly large—less than a thousand tons at the moment... relying on it is a major bottleneck."
"Thirdly, there is the massive issue of the containment reactor itself. While we could theoretically dig a cave deep underground and detonate a bomb inside like the old Earth plans, most of the thermal energy would simply be absorbed by the surrounding bedrock, making the energy utilization rate abysmally low."
"Moreover, repeatedly detonating nuclear weapons inside a natural cavern would cause the rock walls to melt and collapse over a long period, and the repeated seismic shocks would eventually trigger massive, large-scale earthquakes... meaning the reactor location would have to be frequently abandoned and relocated."
The fact that these massive engineering hurdles were listed clearly and objectively showed that the scientists had indeed thought this problem through very carefully.
Jason frowned deeply, his mind racing as he weighed the options.
The scientist continued, "In fact, according to their preserved data, the Nix Civilization also considered using this exact brute-force method to obtain energy during their final stages of societal collapse... but they lacked the necessary stockpiles of tritium or helium-3. They didn’t have enough raw materials to mass-produce the nuclear bombs, or even enough fuel to ignite the initial fission triggers."
"But the Federation has perfected the tetra-hydrogen nuclear bomb, and those raw materials are incredibly abundant. Only a microscopic amount of tritium or helium-3 is needed as a primer to detonate them. Although... uh... the resulting explosive yield... is a little too large, we can theoretically solve that by just building the reactor vessel bigger!"
"Our nuclear weapon mass-production technology... should be considered highly mature and heavily optimized, and its overall energy consumption is relatively low. This is a massive, unique advantage we hold over the Nix."
Jason was completely at a loss for words.
Their technology to mass-produce apocalyptic nuclear weapons was amazing? It sounded good in theory... but what was so special about that? Was being incredibly good at building doomsday weapons really an advantage to be proud of?
Normal, sane civilizations developed in a relatively peaceful manner during their later stages. They would never be as insanely hyper-focused on researching and optimizing nuclear weapons as the Federation had been. On Earth, high-yield weapons like hydrogen bombs were gradually phased out and dismantled due to their absurdly high maintenance costs and lack of practical battlefield use.
"A pure deuterium-deuterium fusion reaction would be sufficient; a massive tetra-hydrogen bomb is completely unnecessary for this application," Professor Hao Yu added, clarifying the physics. "The critical ignition temperature of our new deuterium nuclear bomb design is only 300 to 500 million degrees Celsius, which is much lower than that of a tetra-hydrogen bomb. This allows for a much smaller, precisely controlled yield, keeping the blast well within the one-megaton range..."
Jason was sweating profusely. What did the old man mean by ’only’ 300 to 500 million degrees?!
Only 500 million degrees...
"A tetra-hydrogen bomb requires ignition temperatures exceeding a billion degrees Celsius! The resulting yield has to be massively scaled up just to sustain the reaction, so a smaller, customized deuterium bomb would be a far better choice for a reactor!"
Due to their unique history, the research and development of nuclear weapons had become the defining technology of the Federation, far surpassing the capabilities of the Nix Civilization, and even dwarfing the peak of old Earth’s Cold War.
After all, with the data gathered from observing the supernova explosion acting as an enlightening guide, humanity’s understanding of nuclear reactions had indeed taken a massive leap forward.
However, the internal structure of this proposed new deuterium bomb was fundamentally similar to that of a tetra-hydrogen bomb, still requiring a small helium-3 bomb or a traditional hydrogen bomb acting as the primary fission trigger to ignite the secondary fusion reaction.
Because of this, the minimum possible explosive yield was unlikely to be low. It would have to be at least in the one-megaton range, which presented a terrifying engineering challenge.
What kind of containment vessel could possibly withstand the repeated, point-blank detonation of a one-megaton nuclear bomb?
A standard nuclear warhead with a yield of one megaton possessed a lethal blast radius of over 150 square kilometers, and was designed to instantly vaporize a major metropolitan city!
Jason really had to admire their sheer audacity...