Kapow! Nuclear fusion with a bullet

If John Woo had decided to get into the energy sector instead of bullet-ridden action movies, he might have proposed something like this: firing a diamond bullet into a chunk of solid methane to produce nuclear fusion. And you thought nuclear energy was already exciting.

Of course, the idea of using a high-speed projectile as an energy source is just a theory at the moment, proposed by a group of Chinese researchers at Beijing University in a pair of papers (“Hypervelocity Macroscopic Particle Impact Fusion with DT Methane” and “Fast Ignition Impact Fusion with DT methane”). Even though the energy required to fire a millimetre-sized bullet at 1,000 km/s is considerable, the papers’ authors believe there would still be a net energy gain.

According to the Popular Science article linked above:
The collision’s peak energy is 4 petawatts, at a rate of 1.5 petawatts over 40 nanoseconds. That’s four quadrillion watts. About 80 percent of that energy is wasted in the form of scattered neutrons, but the remaining electrons and radiation are enough to heat things up to fusion temperatures.

Novel alternatives to the current model of nuclear generation are cropping up every day, from alternative fuel sources like uranium nitride to DIY enthusiasts (link to DIY nuclear). But when it comes to exciting alternatives, it’s going to be hard to beat a diamond bullet. Unless, somehow, they can also include a golden gun.

Via Popular Science