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If you fashioned a very thin wire of uranium, perhaps coated in Lead, then started a nuclear chain reaction at one end, could you create a sustainable safe nuclear power?

Since the nuclear reaction is forced into 1 dimension essentially, could it prevent an exponential chain reaction?

Has anything like this been tried?

Or perhaps the energy required to melt the uranium into a wire exceeds the amount of power you would get from it?

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    Interesting idea, but there are several problems. The biggest is, what you have described is "geometrically safe." (Google that!) Any neutrons emitted from within a long skinny wire are much more likely to exit the wire without triggering other fission events than if the same amount of nuclear fuel had been fashioned into a compact shape such as a sphere. A sphere is the least "safe" shape for storing nuclear fuel (i.e., most likely to support a chain reaction.) A long skinny wire would be very safe. – Solomon Slow May 11 '19 at 17:30
  • As @SolomonSlow suggests, in order to create "sustainable nuclear power," you need a chain reaction, otherwise things will simply fizzle out. If the uranium isn't geometrically compact enough, not enough neutrons will reach other uranium atoms to keep the reaction going. However, if the uranium is too geometrically compact, you get a runaway reaction. Keeping a lump of uranium in precisely the right configuration to avoid both a fizzle-out and a blow-up is the primary job of nuclear engineers designing reactors. Your wire is definitely on the fizzle-out side of things. – probably_someone May 11 '19 at 17:37
  • I guess their question extends to other shapes like a ribbon, a plane, a folded sheet, etc. Is there a possible compromise not yet technologically feasible yet theoretically beneficial? – Winston May 11 '19 at 18:13
  • Hmmm.. I guess any shape that is safe would also be inefficient at losing a lot of neutrons. Although the neutrons that you didn't lose would be in a predictable direction. My minds saying a fractal tree-like structure would be interesting. –  May 11 '19 at 19:12
  • Problem #2: You're imagining that a fission chain reaction could propagate through the fuel the way fire propagates. Fire moves slowly, by heating the surrounding fuel. It's a process that takes time, and it's a process that only affects the immediate neighborhood of the flame. Neutrons, on the other hand, move through solid matter, in a matter of nanoseconds, as if the matter wasn't even there. For all practical purposes, you can assume that the neutrons in your reactor are everywhere, all at once – Solomon Slow May 13 '19 at 12:41

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