Wasn’t the H-bomb (fusion) supposed to be way more powerful and unpredictable than the A-bomb (fission)? Kinda confused here and I’m certainly mixing bombs with energy production. But if you could give me the essential I’d appreciate it. Thank you.
In: Chemistry
To make a fission bomb, you need to get a pile of fissile material together that’s above a certain mass. Then it automatically explodes.
To make a fission reactor, you need to get a pile of fissile material together that’s almost exactly that certain mass. Then you tickle it until it just starts to explode but doesn’t ramp up. This produces heat which you capture as steam.
To make a fusion bomb, you take a fission bomb and use it to compress hydrogen until it fuses into helium. More powerful, yes. Less predictable, no.
To make a fusion reactor, you use huge amounts of power and lasers and electromagnets to compress hydrogen until it fuses into helium. (Alternatively, you get a big enough pile of hydrogen that it compresses itself under gravity, but we usually call that a “star,” not a “reactor.”)
If you screw up running your fission reactor, you have something that will keep producing power (as heat) even after it melts (and melts everything else, including your water pipes, and you get a steam explosion).
If you screw up running your fusion reactor, it turns off, and you have to put a lot of power into turning it back on.
There are more modern fail safe reactor designs for fission reactors.
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