From: g_d_pusch_remove_underscores@xnet.com   
      
   Damon Hill  writes:   
      
   > henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer) wrote in   
   > news:Hsy7tn.916@spsystems.net:   
   >   
   >> In article   
   >> <3cbfb824.0402110953.131609d2@posting.google.com>, Asherian   
   >>  wrote:   
   >>> Does anybody know whether Project Prometheus is going to   
   >>> use a turbine-driven generator or an MHD?   
   >>   
   >> Nobody's made any decisions at that level of detail.  It   
   >> might well do something like thermionic conversion.   
   >   
   > How would thermionic conversion work?  I keep imagining   
   > a big vacuum tube triode set up as an oscillator...   
   > The cathode being directly heated by the reactor.   
      
   No triodes required --- just a diode: The hotter of two electrodes   
   "boils off" more electrons than the colder electrode, leading to a   
   potential difference net flow of electrons from the "hot" to the "cold"   
   electrode. Also, the space between electrodes is not usually a vacuum,   
   but usually contains an easily ionized alkali metal vapor such as cesium,   
   to neutralize the space-charge density of the electron flux.   
      
      
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