Sounds like someone there is thinking clearly..
Consider atomic energy, and custom designed nuclear fuel rods, with a safety factor added by seperating uranium or plutonium atoms with something like carbon (or silicon) nanotubes..
Then consider those carbon (or silicon) nanotubes are constructed to have an inner diameter of say, the size of a hydrogen atom..
You could now feed hydrogen into a nuclear reaction on the atomic level... One hydrogen atom at a time.. ( with several billion individual hydrogen feeder tubes being controlled at once.. )
This could be a crude sort of fusion reactor..
The fission reactor providing an energy source as a "starter" much like a diesel engine..
A physicist could probably tear this idea apart in a couple of minutes..(seconds) but I will revel in my genius for the moment.. ;o)
Try looking up the temperature needed for hydrogen fusion to occur...then consider if the nanotubes would endure those temperatures for long...
Cheers!
It has been established (in reality) that material inserted inside a bucky-ball molecule will be suspended and not interact with the carbon or other normal matter, thus if you can manufacture antimatter and insert it within a bucky-ball without having it blow up prematurely the antimatter will be held in place safely until you "crack open" the bucky-ball.
He ends up creating a 2 megaton yield micro bomb suitable for packing into an artillery cluster round for firing from a Bull Gun.
"The system consists of fifty-five sub-projectiles with an Indowy initiator in each," Dr. Castanuelo said, pointing at the diagram on the screen. "After firing, the system reaches its target point and begins to spread projectiles. It doesn't just drop them, which would cause massive overlap, but lays them down during its flight. Each projectile has slowing fins. These have been shown to not "trip" Posleen defensive systems. This system lets all the projectiles attain complimentary altitudes. At a preprogrammed height above ground, which is determined by radar altimeters in each sub-projectile, the Indowy containment field releases a burst of anti-protons into the fullerene matrix which then sustains a rapid chain reaction."
Jack looked at the presentation as the projectiles fell out of the back of an imaginary artillery shell and scattered across a wide area. The effect looked similar to a cluster bomb until you realized that what looked like gullies and small hills in the background was a backdrop of the Rocky Mountains.
“What's the footprint?" Horner asked. He had commandeered a shuttle and flown down to the university as soon as he got the word. He still didn't know if he had the answer to a maiden's prayer or the worst nightmare since the word of the invasion.
Dr. Castanuelo cleared his throat nervously. "Thirty-five miles deep, fifteen miles across. It's the equivalent of a one hundred and ten megaton bomb, but with significantly different gross effects. For example the thermal pulse is equivalent to a two megaton."
"And you built this on your own?" Jack asked quietly. "Without authorization? Or even mentioning it? One hundred and ten megatons?"
"Well, I had the hyperfullerene and the initiators just sitting there," Dr. Castanuelo said hotly. "I thought it might come in handy."
"You thought it might come in handy. Just how much of this . . . hyperfullerene did you make?"
"Well, once we got the production model worked out it seemed reasonable to continue production," Dr. Castanuelo said defensively. "I mean, we had the power plant and the materials. After that it was easy."
"How much?" the general asked smiling faintly. The question was nearly a whisper.
"Well, as of yesterday, excepting the material in the bomb, approximately one hundred and forty kilos."
"Of hyperfullerene?" Jack asked, taking a deep breath.
"No, we generally refer to it in terms of anti-hydrogen atomic mass rather than the . . ."
"You have one hundred and forty kilos of antimatter sitting around on my planet????"
"I thought it would come in handy," the doctor said lamely.
"Sure, for fueling Ninth Fleet!" Jack shouted. "Tell me about the radioactive effects of this bomb."
"Very hot, unfortunately," the scientist sighed. "It's one of the reasons it's useless for an energy source. But very short-lived as well. In a day or two the area is down to high background and in a month it would require sophisticated sensors to tell it has been hit. But not the sort of thing you want running your car. Fortunately, it's readily detectable."
"Sure, with a Geiger counter!" President Carson said.
"Oh, no, there's a visual chemical cue," the professor said. "It was the suggestion of one of my grad students and it made sense. The truly 'hot' areas will be readily detectable visually and the cue will fade as the radiation does."
"But the entire system has not been tested," Carson pointed out with the sort of quiet calm used when an emergency happens during brain surgery.
"We fired a mockup with transmitters in duplicate Indowy containment fields," the scientist said. "They all survived. If they survived, the containment works. And hyperfullerene has been tested against every kind of shock imaginable. Unfortunately, the problem is not it detonating prematurely but getting it to detonate at all."
"And it is armed," Carson said, accusingly.
"Well, yes, that follows."
"Positive action locks?" Jack asked.
"Not yet," Castanuelo admitted. In other words, the bomb could be detonated by anyone with rudimentary technical skills.
"Guards? Electronic security? Vault safety?" the general asked furiously.
"Well, we've got it in one of our mines," the professor said with a shrug. "And I've got a couple of students watching it. Look, it was a crash project!"
Jack glanced at his wrist where his AID used to be and then at his aide. "Jackson, get on the phone. I want an outside expert in here, one on antimatter, one on Indowy containment systems and one on guns and submunitions. I want a company of regular troops around wherever this thing is in no more than an hour and I want them replaced by special operations guard units by the end of the day."
He looked at the scientist and nodded. "Dr. Castanuelo, you're right, we did need it. I'm pretty sure that that is going to keep your bacon out of the fire. As long as it works. If it doesn't . . ."
"Sir, if it doesn't, I'll never know it," Castanuelo said. "If it, for example, detonates on launch, there won't be a Knoxville left."
"And if the rest of your material sympathetically detonates, say goodbye to Tennessee!"
The "visual chemical cue" that one of his grad students suggests will "die" the country side with a bright fluorescent color that will fade as the radiation becomes safe. Being from UT they, of course, choose orange as the color to paint the dangerous countryside. They fire the round at North Georgia, where else?
The line from the book is:
"That's what you get for letting rednecks play with antimatter."