Deep Space - Hidden Terror (The Stasis Stories #6)

by Laurence Dahners

  To Arturo’s horror, one of the other engineers at the table said, “It seems to me that we wouldn’t need magnetic confinement. We could just use Stade to confine the reaction, couldn’t we?”

  His first thought was, Could Stade be that strong? Then he realized, Of course, it is. Some people think it’s infinitely strong!

  Seba answered the other engineer. “Yep. After all, that’s essentially what Medness has been doing. He fires a chirped laser into a cylindrical target containing a lot of hydrogen at one end and boron at the other. Ponderomotive effects accelerate the hydrogen into the boron, causing collisions that result in proton-boron fusion. Where Stade comes in is that normally the immense power of the laser would make the cylinder explode radially outward and dissipate the power before many collisions occurred. By putting the target in a Stade tube, he prevents that radial movement and forces all the power of the laser’s strike to accelerate the hydrogen protons toward the boron.”

  Arturo tried to demonstrate comprehension, “So, are you thinking that we could do something similar, perhaps accelerating deuterium into a tritium target?”

  Seba frowned, “Well, no, though I’m fairly certain that’d work. But it’d have the downsides of free neutron production resulting in induced radioactivity. And since all its energy would go into heat, we’d need a steam turbine to convert the heat into electricity. A lot of that heat would escape, thus contributing to global warming. Also, it wouldn’t make a very good rocket engine because of the need to heat a separate reaction mass and expel it out of the rocket nozzle. All those intermediate steps are bad for efficiency. Proton-boron fusion’s nearly neutron free and the alphas can generate electricity directly. For our rocket, p-B fusion could produce an exhaust stream made up of the alpha particles it creates, without intermediate steps.”

  “But surely if we accelerate protons into boron targets, we’d run afoul of Medness’ patent?” Arturo said.

  “That’s why we’ve got to know what his patent covers,” Seba replied. “But I’ll bet the patent has to do with laser acceleration of the hydrogen, after all, that’s Medness’s field of expertise.”

  Arturo wanted to roll his eyes. “People have been trying to use accelerators to send protons into targets for a long time. They can induce some proton-boron fusion events but not nearly enough to break even with the energy required for the acceleration.”

  “And why can’t they induce more events?” Seba asked.

  Arturo had the feeling Seba already knew why. That he was asking rhetorically. Arturo answered anyway. “The protons and the boron nuclei can be said to be too widely spaced. Even solid materials, when you shoot other nuclei at them, act as if they’re mostly empty space with vast spaces between atomic nuclei. Most of the nuclei pass right through your material. You can expect occasional collisions, but not enough to break even.”

  Seba raised an eyebrow. “What if we directed our stream of protons down a gradually narrowing funnel, squeezing the beam laterally until we’ve markedly diminished that space?”

  “Colliders already use magnets to focus their beams. Most of the protons coming out of your funnel would still fly right through your boron target.”

  “Ah, but what if we formed a boron plasma, stripped out the electrons, and accelerated the boron nuclei as well, sending them down a similarly narrowing funnel aimed to collide with the proton beam? Something similar to research colliders except much narrower. When a research collider focuses a beam magnetically it only gets millimeters small. I’m thinking that with a lot of work we could make Stade funnels that are microns in diameter or even smaller.”

  One of the other engineers raised his hand. Seba acknowledged him. “One of the first things I learned when I came here was that we can’t form Stade features smaller than one millimeter. You can make the molds but the Stade just doesn’t form in cavities that small. Wouldn’t we need to squeeze the beam down smaller than that millimeter to concentrate our protons closely enough?”

  Seba leaned back in his chair. “First, we need to do the math and see how much our beam needs to be squeezed to sufficiently increase the likelihood of collision that we’re colliding most of the protons with a boron nucleus. Second, perhaps we could start with a huge beam and squeeze it down to a millimeter to get the effect we need. Third, and this is really important for you to understand, you can’t make positive Stade features smaller than a millimeter. But, you can make negative features smaller than that. So, if you imagine making a golf ball mold with a bunch of half-millimeter bumps and half-millimeter cavities on its interior surface, when you cast it, you’d find that no Stade bumps had formed outward into the cavities, but that the bumps inside the mold had left dimples in your ball like the dimples on a real golf ball. This means that if we took molten glass and drew out the longest, finest filament we could create, silvered it to create a mirrored outer surface, then cast Stade around it, you’d have exactly the kind of gradually narrowing funnel in the Stade that we’ve been talking about.”

  Arturo said, “So you want us to try to create such funnels and use two accelerators to build a narrow beam proton-boron collider?”

  Seba studied him a moment, “Arturo, what we want is high-efficiency proton-boron fusion. I’m suggesting something I think might work, but we hired an expert. You. Hopefully, you’re innovative enough to find solutions that’ll make something work. We expect a lot of failures while you try different ideas, and we’ll understand if you never succeed, but we don’t want you waiting around for someone else to tell you how to do it.”

  After Seba left, Arturo looked around at the rest of his small group. The group he was supposed to lead. Though he was pretty cocky, he’d thought there would be some senior nuclear engineers or physicists he could work with until he had his feet on the ground. Serena, the lone woman in their group, apparently saw something in his eyes. She said, “Don’t worry. Kaem’s always talking about throwing people into the deep end to see if they sink or swim, but he always relents and helps you figure out how to do your project before you get in too much trouble.”

  Arturo frowned, “Even if he wanted to help us, how would he? It’s my understanding that he’s only got a bachelor’s degree in general physics.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But your understanding needs to adjust to encompass the fact that he’s the smartest person you’ll ever meet.”

  Taken aback, Arturo said, “You don’t think your impression of his intelligence is just because he’s got this Mr. X looking over his shoulder feeding him answers?”

  She shrugged, “If that’s the case, Mr. X never takes a break from looking over his shoulder. You know how he told us to ‘do the math?’”

  Arturo nodded.

  “I promise you he’s already done the math. He thinks that kind of math’s for simpletons. He just wants us to do it ourselves because he doesn’t like his people waiting around for him to spoon-feed them. He’s done the math and he knows it’ll work. He wants us to figure it out for ourselves, but if we get off into the weeds, he’ll pose a few questions that’ll get us back onto the fairway. I’ve never seen him put a team on a project that didn’t work.”

  Arturo nodded.

  But he didn’t believe it.

  After another moment he started asking for volunteers for the various parts of this project. He assigned one to research Medness’s patents. Another to find out about drawing ultrafine glass filaments, and to make sure there wasn’t a plastic that would draw out even finer. One of the guys who claimed to be good with hardware would evaluate the commercially available accelerators in case there was a tabletop version they could use for the project. Arturo himself would start working on the math that would define how many proton-boron collisions they could expect, depending on the amount of acceleration they achieved and how much they could concentrate the beam.

  He also wondered whether they could do better using traditional magnetic focusing of the proton beam as it entered the funnel, then keep it narrow by constra
ining it in such a Stade microtube.

  Chapter Four

  AP Chesapeake, Virginia—Homeowners who took advantage of Staze’s offer to replace their destroyed homes with temporary ones built of Stade have formed an association. This began with those who lost their homes four years ago when Hurricane Gareth struck southeastern Virginia. Recently it has spread to other states hit by hurricanes.

  This association formed in response to pressure that homeowners rebuild their Stade homes using traditional materials—since the homes were supposed to be temporary. Homeowners’ associations who do not like the appearance of the Stade houses have insisted that county building inspectors visit the homes. As Stade is not approved by building codes at present, when inspectors visit, they judge that the homes are in breach.

  The Stade Homeowners Association or SHA, represented by attorney Albert Buckley, points out that Stade is better in every way than the building materials that are approved by building codes. He says, “The building codes are behind the times and should be changed to reflect a new reality. The original SHA homes were destroyed by a hurricane that would’ve been shrugged off if they’d been constructed of Stade. These replacement homes may have been intended to be temporary but they’re stronger, invincible to hurricanes, don’t leak, don’t need to be cleaned, are cheaper to heat and cool because of Stade’s impossibly high insulation value, and can’t be broken into because of their Stade-reinforced windows. Though others have complained about their appearance, the owners have come to love their ultramodern lines and gleaming surfaces.”

  The SHA is lobbying state and county governing bodies to approve Stade construction and make it illegal for homeowners’ associations to discriminate against those owning such homes. Most also want to build Stade additions onto their current homes. Because Stade eliminates much of the maintenance required for homes near the coast—where salt corrosion is a constant source of deterioration—many homeowners who would like to build new Stade homes from scratch have started joining the SHA as well.

  “To be honest,” Buckley says, “the federal government needs to step in and declare Stade to be the preferred material for home building, especially in areas subject to the threat of hurricanes and other natural disasters.”

  Although legal actions are still pending, the consensus is that the SHA is going to win this battle.

  In other news, Hurricane Barth has been upgraded to Category 5 and is bearing down on Louisiana…

  Jim, one of Dez Lanis’ many assistants, represented her at Staze’s update meeting. He said, “Dez wants to confirm that we’re going to be offering temporary Stade homes to the victims of Hurricane Barth?”

  Mahesh looked at Arya and she said, “Yes. Same deal. If insurance writes them a check for the loss of their original home and they decide to stay with the Stade home, we get seventy percent of the check.”

  The assistant nodded, then asked, “Do you mind explaining why so much? The Stade for these homes doesn’t usually cost even close to seventy percent of the value of the insurance reimbursement.”

  Arya said, “We incur a lot of additional costs in shipping the home kits there, Jim. And don’t forget the costs of providing the teams that teach homeowners how to put them up. Also, there are Staze’s expenses for putting up big emergency shelters in disaster areas. These homeowners take advantage of the shelters until the completion of their Stade home. Our profits are far from what you’d think. Besides, when we were charging less, people were asking for new Stade homes even when they’d had minimal damage. Some even inflicted further damage to their homes, hoping to meet criteria for replacement.”

  “Um,” Jim said. “Is that so bad? Why aren’t we pushing to get into the housing market?”

  Arya shrugged. “This seems like a nice gradual way to do it. My understanding is that putting these up is teaching us a lot of valuable lessons about homebuilding with Stade. Also, if we start offering kits at a price that would deliver no more than a reasonable profit, we’ll drive everyone else out of the building market. There’s little doubt that’s going to happen eventually, but doing it as fast as we can would put a lot of people out of work and generate immense anger. We’re hoping to shift the homebuilding industry more gradually to a model that’ll employ some people putting up flat-pack Stade homes, and a lot more people finishing interiors and exteriors with aesthetic materials. Also, a subcategory of the industry that builds custom, high-end Stade homes. Hopefully, this’ll give the lumber industry time to gradually transition away from cheap framing wood to interior hardwoods and other decorative materials. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the people who manufacture roofing and siding materials.”

  Undeterred, Jim said, “If we were building closer to our costs, it could help the homeless.”

  Arya nodded, “You may not be aware that we offer the disaster kits at cost to governments and NGOs that want to build cheap housing for the homeless.” She made a face, “Unfortunately, no matter how cheap we make housing, there’ll still be some people who’re homeless. Some don’t want a house or can’t even pay for utilities.”

  They discussed several other items, then Teri Nunsen asked to speak. She looked at Kaem when she did, “Back when Ed Nagy died in Hurricane Gareth, you challenged us to think of ways to keep hurricanes from hurting people in the future.”

  Kaem said, “Are you thinking that’s a reason to push the idea of Stade homes for people along the hurricane coasts?”

  Teri blinked, “Um, no, though that’s probably a good idea too,” she said thoughtfully. “They’d be safe in their homes and wouldn’t have to rebuild afterward… But, no. What I was thinking about was the way you also challenged us to try to prevent hurricanes. I’ve been looking into what brings hurricanes into existence…”

  When she trailed off, Kaem leaned forward, a gleam in his eye, “You’re thinking we could affect whatever it is?”

  She looked wistful, “I don’t think we can yet, but I found a list of six things that’re required to initiate a hurricane. Two of them caught my eye. One requirement is warm ocean surface waters near, but not right on the equator. It occurred to me that we might be able to cool areas where the water temps have gotten up into the range that they could birth a hurricane.”

  “Oh yeah,” Kaem said. “I once heard of plans to pump cold water up from the ocean depths to cool the surface in hopes of doing that.” He frowned, “I don’t think those attempts worked, but my impression was that they hadn’t done the numbers. That they weren’t pumping nearly enough cold water to make a difference. Do you have an idea for improving those schemes?”

  “Well,” she said, “we have 131 of our urban heat island shiel—”

  Kaem slammed his hand down on the table, “Great freaking idea! You want to send shields down to the area where hurricanes form in the south Atlantic, right? Shade the ocean and keep it from getting hot?”

  “That’s what I thought at first, but the numbers don’t work—”

  “Of course they don’t,” Gunnar said as if it were the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “The average hurricane’s 300 miles in diameter. I’m no math wizard like Kaem, but even I can see that at a square mile each, a single line of 131 shields doesn’t even cover a single radial line in that 300-mile circle!”

  Kaem frowned, “If that’s the case, the average hurricane covers 70,650 square miles. Makes our 131 square miles of shade sound pretty piddling.” He looked at Teri, “But it sounded like you had some ideas? Do we know that shade significantly cools the ocean surface?”

  “To your second question, the ocean’s surface varies about ten degrees in its day-night cycle, suggesting that shading would make a difference. Hurricane initiation requires water surface temperatures over eighty degrees Fahrenheit, or 26.5 Celsius. Since the surface temps rarely get above eighty-six degrees, a ten-degree drop should make a big difference. As evidence for that, hurricanes that stall and sit in one place, shading the sea surface themselves, usually lose strength a
nd fall apart.”

  Gunnar, sounding exasperated, said, “But we don’t have enough shields to make a difference!”

  Teri gave him an unintimidated look, “We could keep building them.” She paused and he looked like he was about to interject again. Instead, she continued, “But, the second of the two things I mentioned before is that starting a hurricane requires a ‘pre-existing disturbance.’ By that, they mean a cluster of showers or a good thunderstorm to get it going.” She glanced around the group. “I’m proposing that this September, the peak of hurricane season, and when neither the cities in the northern or the southern hemispheres are badly in want of urban shading, we send our shields into the subtropical Atlantic. There they can still generate and store power. But they can also shade the ocean around any such disturbances. Those kinds of disturbances are far smaller than a mature hurricane.” Several people looked about ready to interrupt but Teri held up her hand, halting them. “And,” she said, “if a hurricane gets away from us, we send our shields ahead of it, cooling the water it’s going to pass over. Even if we can’t stop it. we might be able to weaken it.”

  Gunnar snorted and muttered, “That’ll be like using a flyswatter to stop a rhino.”

  Teri gave him a cool look. “I don’t think we’re going to succeed. Not at first anyway. But I think it’s worth doing for the data we can gather. That will give us some notion whether this idea has enough traction to pursue…” She narrowed her eyes as she stared at Gunnar, “As opposed to simply ridiculing it without any data.”

  Kaem laughed, “In your face, Gunnar!”

  Gunnar rolled his eyes and held out his hand. “I’m taking bets.”