Fallout's Cold Fusion Problem

Thanks for watching! Yeah, we actually have a radiation detector sponsor lol. Use code "Kyle" for 5% off here: 103.radiacode.com/KyleHill

"Fusion cores" in Fallout aren't fusion. People call them that (because that's what it says on the side, and how it was marketed), but General Atomics explicitly, in the lore, lied about what the "fusion cores" were. They were highly radioactive, unstable isotope batteries. Poseidon Energy is well-documented to have lied through their teeth in terms of getting hot fusion to work. The Institute in Fallout 4 took nearly two centuries to get to the point where they were ready to implement it and had therefore been nursing along a fission reactor to get as much use out of scant available uranium as they possibly could (it's one of the major points in their quest line). It's equally possible that the Vault-Tec cold fusion device in the show/lore is not at all what Vault-Tec says it is. Because, of course, one of the things we know and see over and over, is that Vault-Tec is deeply, horrifyingly dishonest on virtually every level.

Kyle hill: finally gets a single radiation-related sponsor Everyone: "WOOOOOOOOOOOO, YEAAAAA BABY, THAT'SWHATWE'VEBEENWAITINGFOR"

There is actually a small reference to cold fusion in Fallout 4 where it literally states "Evidence suggests this is, and always will be, a pipe dream"

Kyle: "How does cold fusion work in the Fallout TV show?" Todd Howard: "It just works!"

Moldaver could stand in front of the reactor because she's flagged as essential until the quest's papyrus script triggers her kill command.

There's a long-standing argument in Fallout lore that the "Fusion Core" is not actually fusion and is more marketing hype for Fission. It works more like fission, too, when you look at how it's implemented.

Actually, Fallout 3 already introduced an underground power grid that is still active 200 years after the Great War. Radking made a video about “where does power come from in Fallout?”. Short version is that aside from generators, some locations have some power boxes that are connected underground and to the side of buildings, which upon destruction reveal copper coils, indicating that they are actually transformers. In the base game a ghoul scientists in one of the SatCom Arrays wrote in a terminal entry that she figured how to draw power from these underground power lines. The metro tunnels, many of which still have power, are supposedly supplied by these underground power lines as well. Lastly, in the Broken Steel DLC we finally get to access one of these underground power plants that are still active, Olney Powerworks, in order to retrieve a Tesla Coil for the Tesla Cannon.

My headcanon is that most of the things in Fallout labeled "fusion " are kinda-sorta fusion, but it's not the main energy-maker. It makes a lot more sense from both a lore standpoint, and an IRL nuclear physics one, if the fusion in there is just a primitive fusor (something you can make at home outta old TV parts and some Deuterium from United Nuclear) acting as a triggerable, on-demand neutron source to kickstart some kind of nuclear battery to output more juice - probably a direct electrostatic battery, judging by the high voltages on the microfusion cell labels in-game and the kinds of high-voltage low-amperage juice your average directed energy weapon needs to function. It sounds complicated, but really all it is, is a beryllium can filled with ultra-low-pressure deuterium-tritium gas mix, with the target electrodes of the fusor being made of a fissile isotope like uranium 235 or plutonium. It's something you could make using 1950's tech (heck, the fission part was invented in 1912), and explains a lotta the in-game mechanics, including how breeder/recharger type weapons work - soaking up some of the excess neutrons with a fertile isotope like depleted uranium or natural thorium instead of making it purely outta high-test material, and mixing in some regular hydrogen into the D-T gas mix, makes something that can recycle some of its own neutrons into making more juice happen.

New blast door graphics, nice.

As I recall, the 'fusion cores' and fusion batteries' that one encounters are revealed to actually be hyper portable fission devices, Mass Fusion was misrepresenting them to the general public, in Fallout cannon.

When I hear Cold Fusion, I always think of the Val Kilmer film, "The Saint."

Correction: Not every major energy technology is a means of turning water into steam to turn turbines to generate electricity. Hydropower: Uses the flow of water to directly turn turbines without producing steam. Wind Power: Uses wind to turn turbines directly. Solar Photovoltaic (PV): Converts sunlight directly into electricity using semiconductor materials. Tidal Wave Power: Uses the movement of water to drive turbines directly.

Infinitie power... that would be great for the common wealth as long as the insitute doesnt get ahold of such things. We need to show the people the minuteman are back, and as per usual, another settlement needs your help, I'll mark it on your map

Did Kyle Hill just make me want to spend $300+ on a pocket-sized Geiger counter? I'm so so tempted.

Kyle's alternate plot could actually be good to be like having hidden G.E.K.s all over and activating them starts restoring the world.

In Fallout's lore: Fussion Cores, are only labaled as fusion cores, but use fission instead. Mass Fusion (company responsible for Fallout's Fusion Cores and most of pre-war power grid) used false advertising to lure in investors and shareholders.

The Fallout franchise has gotten more fantastical over time. When the GECK was originally introduced, it was a miniature power generator, a computer containing useful information on rebuilding civilization, chemicals that can make the soil arable, and seeds for growing food and useful plants. But that was changed in Fallout 3 where they made it like a Star Trek replicator or Genesis Device that can rearrange things on the molecular level and restore the land to pristine condition. Also, the original Fallout had fusion but the problem was that they couldn't make fusion reactors fast enough to meet the energy demands of the world. And there wasn't enough oil or uranium left in the world to keep society functioning long enough to make the transition to fusion.

A Geiger counter sponsor is definitely a chef's kiss for this channel.

"Here is something you can do at home." Pulls out uranium