Air Force Researching Antimatter Weapons

4 Oct, 2004 at 9:36pm ET Article published in Tech

The U.S. Air Force is quietly spending millions of dollars investigating ways to use a radical power source — antimatter, the eerie “mirror” of ordinary matter — in future weapons.

The most powerful potential energy source presently thought to be available to humanity, antimatter is a term normally heard in science-fiction films and TV shows, whose heroes fly “antimatter-powered spaceships” and do battle with “antimatter guns.” But antimatter itself isn’t fiction; it actually exists and has been intensively studied by physicists since the 1930s. In a sense, matter and antimatter are the yin and yang of reality: Every type of subatomic particle has its antimatter counterpart. But when matter and antimatter collide, they annihilate each other in an immense burst of energy.

I hope this doesn’t become the next thing the terrorists can get their hands on. -KF

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Comments

4 Oct 2004 ~ 9:47pm entropy *cough*

Anyone read Angels & Demons by Dan Brown?

....
4 Oct 2004 ~ 11:19pm primesuspect That's all we need is a ****ing bigger bomb.... :shakehead

This playground one-upmanship stuff is gonna get us all wiped out one day.....
4 Oct 2004 ~ 11:25pm TheSmJ Lets not forget the bigger picture: This sort of research will bring incredible (good) things in the future.
4 Oct 2004 ~ 11:38pm primesuspect Yeah, for what? What incredible things have atomic energy done for us?

And please spare me the "nuclear power is teh graet" speech. It's not any better than any other power source. If we had spent 100 kajillion dollars on solar power research instead of nuclear research (for weapons with power being a by-product), then we would probably have terribly efficient and totally clean solar power right now.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 12:02am RWB I think this is pretty cool... well at least until it destorys our planet at least.

I am curious if this is an Anti Matter BOMB, or some form of Death Ray based on teh moon....
5 Oct 2004 ~ 12:22am Nomad I doubt you will see anti-matter weapons in the anytime near future. I usually don't talk about enviromental stuff, but for the amount of energy that a nuclear power plant produces, it would take miles upon miles of highly productive solar panels to produce. I suppose you could argue that it doesn't create waste. The greatest leaps in science have come from the need to wipe the other guy off the map. The automobile, for example, was originally intended to move troops more quickly to places and haul things.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 3:38am Geeky1

primesuspect wrote:

we would probably have terribly efficient and totally clean solar power right now.

I don't think so. And I would remind you that BOTH of the disasters/near-disasters with nuclear fission reactors were due to human stupidity.

3 Mile Island in particular could have been avoided in its entirety if the f*cktards in the control room had believed their instruments and let the disaster prevention systems in place do their jobs.

Solar power as it stands now is not a viable option for any kind of large scale use. The panels are inefficient, it's entirely weather-dependent, and I don't know if you know this, but the manufacture of solar panels produces a good deal of toxic waste byproducts. Even if you don't use photovoltaic cells, and use another form of solar power, you still have that minor detail of the weather. I don't forsee solar or wind power being viable alternatives for large-scale power production now, in the near future, or indeed ever. The only way that I could see it being practical was if we had power stations in geostationary orbits beaming their power down in the form of microwaves. And that's all well and good until your collimating and focusing system (which would have to be very complex, very precisely made, and consequently very expensive) f*cks up and you microwave some guy's car.

Hydroelectric power is clean, but it destroys entire ecosystems. Do you realize that there are species of bacteria that live only within a few square feet of ground? Consider the amount of ground Lake Mead covered up. Who knows what was wiped out when that lake was created?

There is ultimately no 100% clean, safe way of generating electricity. Hydroelectric is good, but nuclear fission is better. At any rate, within the next 100-200 years, possibly within 50 or less, the problem should be nonexistent. We've already achieved nuclear fusion; the issue is creating a sustained, controlled fusion reaction.

Unlike fission, fusion doesn't create radioactive waste, and it has the potential to generate almost unimaginable amounts of power; fusion is what powers every star in the sky, after all.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 6:42am EyesOnly

KingFish wrote:

I hope this doesn't become the next thing the terrorists can get their hands on. -KF

One way or the other that will happen. Let's hope not though.

I agree with geeky that fusion seems to be the only vialble alternitive to fission. Let's hope they can get it working soon, the environment needs it and so do we.

If only enough companies could sink enough money into it.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 7:25am mmonnin Yep Nuclear power plants produce a freakin ****load of power and the power coming from the Sun is not enough to power anything big.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 8:05am primesuspect That's because we don't know how yet. Check out some of the work being done with photosynthesis and solar research. The potential is there.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 10:10am KingFish I also agree with prime in that I would like to have seen more poured into solar power. Solar panels are increasingly becoming more efficient all the time, where would we be if we invested more into research before? We have already progressed to the point to where we can wipe out all of humanity many times over already with nukes. If antimatter research were used purely for a power source it would be great although we all know that's not the truth. Unfortunately many scientific advances are owed to the military and the need to kill each other more efficiently. I would like to see this stuff being used for the good where we benefit in a less violent manner.

KingFish
5 Oct 2004 ~ 11:01am Omega65

Geeky1 wrote:

Solar power as it stands now is not a viable option for any kind of large scale use.

I like to point out that Solar Energy Powers the Entire Earth Biosphere! (except for the bacteria colonies living off of geothermal & volcanic vents on the ocean floor)

All It requires is research (That 100+ Billion spent on the Iraqi (oil) war would have been a nice start )
5 Oct 2004 ~ 11:27am primesuspect Amen, Wali....
5 Oct 2004 ~ 1:22pm EMT Yes, ultimately the energy comes from the sun, but we are consuming oil for example much faster than it's being created. Solar panels today I think are about 10 percent efficient - certainly room for improvement. I think there was research yielding 50 percent efficiency and once we've reached that we're going to get some diminishing returns. Anyway, the point is there's a finite limit to how much energy we can get from the sun. And if we were to get too much too efficiently we'd be stealing heat away from Earth.

So a new energy source would really be brilliant and I'm glad we've got nuclear till we get there. Don't you hate being dependent on oil?
5 Oct 2004 ~ 2:04pm primesuspect But that's the other thing- all this nuclear research in the name of better living, right? So why are we still so dependent on fossil fuels? Same thing is gonna happen with antimatter research - we'll spend whatever it takes to get the Ultimate Bomb So We Can Kill The Other Guys, but the buck will stop there. Any "energy" research will be arbitrary at best and circumstantial at worst.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 2:21pm Geeky1

Omega65 wrote:

I like to point out that Solar Energy Powers the Entire Earth Biosphere! (except for the bacteria colonies living off of geothermal & volcanic vents on the ocean floor)

All It requires is research (That 100+ Billion spent on the Iraqi (oil) war would have been a nice start )

Granted, but that's an entirely different process than the ones that we're using to generate solar power. The two are not comparable in any way.

And prime, the reason we're still dependent on fossil fuels is partially because fuel cell and battery technology is not viable for large scale production yet, partially because hydrogen (which is ultimately the alternative to fossil fuels) is an extraordinarily leaky and dangerous gas, and partially because there are a lot of "nuclear hysterics" out there that are preventing us from building more nuclear power plants.

Not only does nuclear power generate more power with less environmental damage than any other form of power generation, it also produces enough power to get us off of oil; with nuclear power, we could be using the powerplants to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen gas, which could then be used for fuel cells or for internal combustion engines running on hydrogen.

This is not feasible with other technology because electrolysis requires a huge amount of power, and the only way to generate enough power to generate enough hydrogen to power the country is using nuclear reactors.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 2:30pm GHoosdum

Omega65 wrote:

I like to point out that Solar Energy Powers the Entire Earth Biosphere! (except for the bacteria colonies living off of geothermal & volcanic vents on the ocean floor)

I cut out the political statement from the quote since it has no bearing on the discussion.

While the statement I quoted is entirely true, it's just not possible to power everything off of solar power, unless we do a huge amount of research into making things a LOT more efficient. We'd need 5W light bulbs that produce the output of a 100W incandescent, refrigerators that cool on 1/5 the power they use now, and 15W CPUs that operate at 2+ GHz without decreasing IPC efficiency. It would have required a huge amount of foresight starting in the 1930s to produce that idyllic world, and it's unlikely we'll be able to produce it any time soon.

I agree with Geeky - efficient fusion power is the key.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 2:47pm Geeky1

GHoosdum wrote:

I agree with Geeky - efficient fusion power is the key.

Exactly. The best solution in the short-term is fission, with it being superceded by fusion when the technology is ready.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 3:49pm Omega65 responses to various points

Fusion Power Doesn't exist - efficient or otherwise.

Electric Panel efficiency is ~12% (Free energy - no pollution except in manufacturing)

A Forest of Solar Panels can power Hydrogen hydrolysis for free (after manufacturing - much less than a nuclear plant though.... ).

Hydrogen is less dangerous than Gasoline. A Hydrogen leak just evaporates (Hydrogen Powered Transportation has limited range though...)

Gas Engine Efficiency is ~30% plus Pollution ($2/gal and rising (in Phila Pa)

Fluorescent Lights give 100watts of light using 25 watts of power

100 watt Fluorescent (25w/hr) 6K hour Lifespan $10 + ($0.10Kwh) = $10 + $15 = $25 total
100 watt Incandesent 750 hour lifespan ($0.25/bulb x 8) = $2 + ($0.10Kwh) = $2 + $60 = $62
(I've replaced every bulb in my house with compact Fluorescents)

Heard on a radio program last week about alternative fuels/transportation
Average Daily commute is ~12 miles one way (Mine is 10 miles)
24KW Electric car has a range of 100miles and can be recharged for ~$3
A 20mpg Vehicle costs $10 to travel the same distance ($2/gal and rising (in Phila Pa)
A 15mpg SUV Costs $13
A 50mpg Toyota Prius does it for $4
5 Oct 2004 ~ 5:35pm GHoosdum Actually, fusion power does exist - several tokamak reactors have been built. The challenge is building a sustainable fusion reaction that efficiently outputs significantly more power than is required to sustain the reaction. In fact, we've had fusion power for years now, just not efficient fusion power.

Where are we going to put a forest of solar collectors? I'm sure pretty much no matter where such a solution was proposed, the eco-nazis would protest, because it would destroy whatever ecosystem you chose to place it in.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 8:07pm EMT A lot of your points are interesting. There are a few I'll call attention to.

Omega65 wrote:

Fluorescent Lights give 100watts of light using 25 watts of power

...

Heard on a radio program last week about alternative fuels/transportation
Average Daily commute is ~12 miles one way (Mine is 10 miles)
24KW Electric car has a range of 100miles and can be recharged for ~$3
A 20mpg Vehicle costs $10 to travel the same distance ($2/gal and rising (in Phila Pa)
A 15mpg SUV Costs $13
A 50mpg Toyota Prius does it for $4

Two points. One is that electric cars aren't as efficient as they'd like you to believe, car sellers aren't actually allowed to report anything but the mpg number they've been given and often it can be a (sometimes gross!) overestimate. Well, I only saw a news story on it... you'd think the vehicles would be doing a little better if they had better mileage for the same price though!

Secondly I'd like to see a reference on this flourescent thing. I have a hard time believing it. Energy doesn't come from nowhere and 400% efficiency is something that generally doesn't exist. Now, LED lamps, those are close to 100% and as the cost falls we'll be seeing those replace incandescents and - I thought - flourescents alike.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 9:50pm Geeky1 On the fluorescent lights, he means that a 25w fluorescent puts out as much light as a 100w incandescent.

Regardless, electric cars are not viable solutions for most people at this point.

As for hydrogen being less dangerous than gasoline... dude, wtf?

Hydrogen and oxygen is rocket fuel; leaked hydrogen gas mixing with air creates a mixture that's even more volatile than gasoline. Hydrogen is not safer than gasoline at all.

And how exactly would a forest of solar plants power electrolysis? Above and beyond the fact that you're destroying more of the environment with a forest of powerplants than with a few nuclear plants, how are you going to power things at night? And don't give me this "batteries" bull****, because battery technology isn't there yet. And since you could only power things during the daytime, you have to generate power ON TOP of what you're generating already just for electrolysis. The bottom line is that this idea that solar power is a viable alternative is simply absurd.

Nuclear fission is the cleanest, most environmentally friendly, and most efficient form of large-scale power generation we have at this point. Hydroelectric may be cleaner (although I'm not sure about that), but it is less environmentally friendly and less efficient than fission. Fission is the only way to go right now, with a transition to fusion once it becomes viable.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 11:06pm primesuspect

Geeky1 wrote:

Nuclear fission is the cleanest, most environmentally friendly, and most efficient form of large-scale power generation we have at this point.

Official EPA statement wrote:

How long will the waste possibly destined for Yucca Mountain remain radioactive?

Spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste contain short- and long-lived radionuclides. Most of the radionuclides in this waste will decay to insignificant levels within several hundred years. However, some radionuclides will take many thousands of years to decay to non-threatening levels.

Source = http://www.epa.gov/radiation/yucca/faqs.htm#howlongradioactive

Sounds pretty clean, environmentally friendly, and safe to boot
5 Oct 2004 ~ 11:14pm Geeky1 -the nuclear waste generated by powering a family of 4 for 20 years will fit in a shoebox

-fossil fuel powerplants release more radiation and other pollution into the atmosphere than nuclear plants generate

-burying nuclear waste in Yucca mountain will not impact the ecology of the area around it; creating a friggin' lake behind a dam has a BIG impact on the ecology of an ecosystem, as does covering an area with solar panels or windmills.

-both nuclear disasters/near-disasters we've ever had have been due to operator idiocy and/or operator error
5 Oct 2004 ~ 11:27pm primesuspect Okay, so there is nothing you can tell me that will convince me that nuclear energy is safer than any other form of energy, for this one single reason alone:

Geeky1 wrote:

Both nuclear disasters/near-disasters we've ever had have been due to operator idiocy and/or operator error

Geeky1 wrote:

-the nuclear waste generated by powering a family of 4 for 20 years will fit in a shoebox

Even if this is true, that is totally meaningless. Forget how much waste is generated by a family of four people. Think of how much waste is generated by a small metropolitan area of, say, four million. Four million shoeboxes is a lot of damn waste. That's just a small area. Those rods are huge, there are lots of them, and they are unsafe for at least HUNDREDS of years, and "probably" unsafe for tens of thousands of years. There is NOTHING that we can build that will make for perfectly safe nuclear energy.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 11:30pm Geeky1 Nothing is perfectly safe. Nuclear energy is the best thing we've got. Yes, it's more dangerous than is ideal. Yes, nuclear waste is not stuff you want to play with. It's also the best thing we have.
5 Oct 2004 ~ 11:37pm primesuspect I disagree with you completely. How is it the best if it could potentially harm so many people? The "best" from a numbers standpoint, maybe yes.... But the "best"? no way.

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0207/feature1/zoom4.html

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0207/feature1/zoom3.html

That looks like the best form of energy to me!

And I happen to disagree with you that yucca mountain will have no environmental impact whatsoever. Prove that to me.
6 Oct 2004 ~ 7:18am Omega65

GHoosdum wrote:

Actually, fusion power does exist - several tokamak reactors have been built.
.......
Where are we going to put a forest of solar collectors? I'm sure pretty much no matter where such a solution was proposed, the eco-nazis would protest, because it would destroy whatever ecosystem you chose to place it in.

To the best of my knowlegde No Tokamak reactor makes more energy than it uses. Post a link if you know of one.

Put them in the Desert, few living things, and plenty of Sun.

Geeky1 wrote:

Regardless, electric cars are not viable solutions for most people at this point.

As for hydrogen being less dangerous than gasoline... dude, wtf?

Hydrogen and oxygen is rocket fuel; leaked hydrogen gas mixing with air creates a mixture that's even more volatile than gasoline. Hydrogen is not safer than gasoline at all.

And how exactly would a forest of solar plants power electrolysis? Above and beyond the fact that you're destroying more of the environment with a forest of powerplants than with a few nuclear plants, how are you going to power things at night?

Rocket Fuel is Liquid Hydrogen, Hydrogen vehicles use either fuel Cells which use compressed Gaseous Hydrogen or Hydrogen stored in a metallic compund. Hydrogen powered vehicles are safer than Gasoline powered vehicle in a crash. It's still somewhat dangerous just less than what we use normally (Gas & Diesel) and MUCH less than you alluded to.

Solar cells make electricity which makes hydrogen from water. Electrical Demand drops Dramatically at night the main power hogs Businesses, Buidings, Shopping centers, Mall and Factories tend to be closed at night. Also if needed at night you just burn the hydrogen and get some of that free energy back. (& no pollution or radioactive waste)
6 Oct 2004 ~ 9:24am GHoosdum

primesuspect wrote:

And I happen to disagree with you that yucca mountain will have no environmental impact whatsoever. Prove that to me.

When Yucca Mountain was first proposed (in 1983), environmental studies were conducted that showed that there would be zero environmental impact for 10,000 years from the storage of wastes there. This was with '80s technology. Now, the current burden is to prove that with current storage technologies, the storage of waste will produce no environmental impact for hundreds of thousands of years. Waste will not be stored there until that is proven. However, waste is piling up at nuclear power plants, and it is estimated that within 10 years there will be no storage room left at any power plant. I think Yucca Mountain (even with only 10,000 years of safety) is much safer than a bunch of small stockpiles of waste all over the country!

Omega65 wrote:

To the best of my knowlegde No Tokamak reactor makes more energy than it uses. Post a link if you know of one.

I don't know of one, and what you've said is almost exactly what I said in my prior post in the part that you didn't quote - once efficient fusion power production occurs, it will be the overall best (balanced) system for power production that humans could feasibly use in the coming decades. Forests of solar power is going to be impossible to implement due to the large amounts of ground space it must cover - both sides of the fence would surely oppose that.
6 Oct 2004 ~ 11:00am Omega65 Like I said it doesn't exist. You can create a Plasma, but you can't make it produce energy. Current methods of Hot Fusion doesn't work and it may never work. (I hope it does someday). I doubt that any new Fission Reactor will built either. No one wants one in their back yard.

You can build or buy a Solar Cell collector system to power your house (& electric car) now.

Oil hit a new high of $51/barrel yesterday. :shakehead