U.S. Navy unveils high-speed rail gun - YouTube

Rail guns are very cool, but this is much more interesting:
U.S. Navy converting seawater into fuel ? Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion


If the Army could figure out how to generate the power needed that would be one hell of a tank killer!

This explains why the newest Navy ships have such large on board power generation already....

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

yeah, the problem with a rail gun was always that you needed a nuclear reactor to power it.

Not to mention they are HUGE


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TC
Current stable:
- 2004 Mazda RALLYWANKEL
- 2007 Saturn sky redline
- 2004 Explorer...under surgery.

Past: 135i, GTI, 300E, 300SD, 300SD, Stealth

Suspecting the fuel story is overblown. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. The catch is that you need to add power from a nuclear reactor (on a carrier) to make the fuel for aircraft. It would work on a nuclear carrier and even make sense, but for civilian uses, why not just electrolyze the seawater to make hydrogen gas to run engines?

Hmmm, where would the Navy find a nuke?

I guess someone didn't read the "public" power generation specs of the new Ford class carrier...it puts out enough juice to run NYC...way more than current needs.

All the Navy's new ships have massive excess power generation capabilities...hmm wonder why...maybe they plan on fitting laser and rail gun weapons to them during their operational life span?

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Imagine if all this energy (hah!) went to weaning the US off fossil fuels instead of devising better ways to murder people.

Swatting flies with a sledgehammer???

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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)

From this week's "Daily Show"

"Nothing says 21st Century

The Navy is going nuke, you can't build nuclear plants in this country. That's the problem.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Convince Congress to appropriate for 2x the carriers and nuclear-powered guided missile destroyers actually needed. Link the idle ships to the grid. Problem solved

...because if you have energy available it's better to use it directly instead of losing efficiency by converting it into hydrogen. Hydrogen is nothing more than an inefficient storage battery. The hydrogen molecule is so small that normal steel tanks and pipes are like a wool sock for containing hydrogen. While the hydrogen leaks it embrittles the metal, so that fatigue and failure, usually with spectacular results happens much sooner.

The simplest and most effective means of storing excess energy is pumped storage. The Swiss have been quietly and effectively using it for decades.
Thorium fueled nuclear is the energy source of the future, as it can be easily scaled to integer megawatt sizes for remote deployment. Many small isolated nuclear reactors are more effective than a few huge facilities. Relatively abundant thorium hasn't been pursued as a nuclear fuel because it doesn't produce weapons grade plutonium as a useful byproduct like uranium fueled reactors do.

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“Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.” ― Robert A. Heinlein

There's no reason this shouldn't be done at naval bases. Of course it will warm the water in the harbour, which may or may not add problems to deal with.

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“Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.” ― Robert A. Heinlein