That's nice. I WORKED on a fission plant. I drained the coolant, primary and secondary, in order to maintain the chemistry, so when I tell you it uses water, that's an accurate statement.
Thank you, but we are talking about a different type of generator.
A TL 6 reactor, and I have repeatedly stipulated a low tech reactor - not a TL7.5 experiment, is not sealed unless you are using molten salt, and even then only the primary coolant is sealed.
Again you are talking about something different, not an rtg but a fission reactor, they are very different technology. The rtg in voyager has certainly not sprung a leak since there is nothing to leak.
"A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG, RITEG), or radioisotope power system (RPS), is a type of
nuclear battery that uses an array of
thermocouples to convert the
heat released by the decay of a suitable
radioactive material into
electricity by the
Seebeck effect. This type of
generator has no moving parts and is ideal for deployment in remote and harsh environments for extended periods with no risk of parts wearing out or malfunctioning."
The rtgs on Voyager were designed during the 60s, the first ones were 1950s.
You have water generating the power... and the steam side is the one that you eject the most water from to maintain the chemistry - because you REALLY don't want those paper thin heat exchanger tube walls to rupture when there is molten sodium on the other side of the water system.
But there are no pipes and coolant on an rtg, they don't work like that.
You either use a volatile pH control, which needs frequent replacement, or you dissolve the pH medium, which causes sediment to build up where the water boils and has to be flushed out by draining the water out.
Not in an rtg you don't.
The Stirling system as described doesn't exist as a hermetically sealed closed system with a moving coolant generating electricity on a Traveller ship scale. It isn't an RTG. RTG's won't power anything but an unmanned probe with low-power instruments.
The real world says different, I have provided the wiki links, would you like the links to the companies developing these things?
The stirling system uses liquid helium, after 15 years of continuous testing no degradation or leaks.
The kilopower uses sodium in a closed loop.
Read the articles, then read the references - I am talking about rtgs not fission power plants.
It is looking to see if the small craft rule is applied (and whether it is a small craft - though I am not sure that is relevant rounding up is a convenience not a law of physics).
