Nuclear-Punk World?

While reading the "Steampunk" entry on TV Tropes, two quotes stood out for me:

However, any Victorian-era society which actually tried to create steampunk technology would soon find itself in stark trouble. The power requirements necessary to make real-world versions of steampunk devices (or at least Victorian-era versions of 20th century technology) would be enormous, and would soon exhaust all available supplies of coal and wood. A real steampunk society would have to either immediately transform into a fully modern society (with oil, gas, and nuclear power driving devices made of modern, lighter materials) or would quickly become, in all probability, a technological dead end.

Even today steam engines drive submersibles, tremendous ships of war, and even power entire cities. But since the water is boiled by radioactive isotopes and not by coal or wood, we tend to call them "nuclear reactors" nowadays. There's a reason they called the first Atomic Sub the Nautilus!

And an idea occurred to me: Is there anything that prevents a society with 1890's-level technology from discovering how nuclear fission works, and how to build a working nuclear reactor? And if so, could we have a world that, instead of transitioning from steam to internal combustion, transitions from coal-fired steam engines to nuclear-fired ones? And how much could reactors be minaturized (I admit nuclear-powered steam trains and nuclear-powered airships are cool to think about, though probably implausible.)
 

The Dude

Banned
Yes, there are things that prevent 1890s societies from developing nuclear reactors. Like the fact that atomic science was in it's infancy. IIRC, they hadn't even discovered the neutron by then, for godssakes! The idea that they could is just ridiculous and ASB.
 
Yes, there are things that prevent 1890s societies from developing nuclear reactors. Like the fact that atomic science was in it's infancy. IIRC, they hadn't even discovered the neutron by then, for godssakes! The idea that they could is just ridiculous and ASB.

Sorry, probably should have put this in NPC, since its more of a worldbuilding question. But anyway, could we have a TL where atomic science advances faster or petroleum technology is slower, so that the world is in a position to invent nuclear reactors before internal combustion engines become widespread? And would this pre-empt the spread of internal combustion technology, so that the world relies on nuclear energy (or electric motors which ultimately get their power from nuclear energy)?

Say, almost all power plants are nuclear. Most ships are powered by nuclear energy. Most transportation uses electric trains or cars (which ultimately get their energy from the above-mentioned nuclear power plants, the same way OTL electric trains and cars ultimately get their energy from-mostly coal-fired-power plants).
 

The Dude

Banned
Sorry, probably should have put this in NPC, since its more of a worldbuilding question. But anyway, could we have a TL where atomic science advances faster or petroleum technology is slower, so that the world is in a position to invent nuclear reactors before internal combustion engines become widespread? And would this pre-empt the spread of internal combustion technology, so that the world relies on nuclear energy (or electric motors which ultimately get their power from nuclear energy)?
Let me put it this way; it is not possible with any single, concrete POD that I can think of, save maybe the Burning of the Alexandria Library.
 
An ASB/Fantasy situation:

Mars has an inhabitable environment but there is no petroleum or coal there. However, Uranium and Plutonium are plentiful. During the 1960s and 70s the USA, EEC USSR/Warsaw Pact and China start colonizing Mars. WWIII happens but it is restricted to Earth as the Martian colonial governors sit out the war. Mars becomes united under a federation and sports a pacifist Nuclearpunk society. 100 years later, United Mars is recolonizing Earth which has been reduced to warring statelets.
 
Major hurdle

The major hurdle for this, IMVHO, is the supply of fissionables. Refining Uranium 235, making Plutonium 239, or making Uranium 233 are all very difficult processes, requiring both an understanding of the structure of the atom and massive technological resources.

An ASB aproach would be to have a higher proportion of U-235 in the earth, allowing fission with unrefined Uranium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_reactor

It would still be formidable to discover it, but perhaps an outside possibility. And the sweet thing--reactors yes, bombs, NO. Not until a decent understanding came about of what's going on. (Dirty bombs, however, would be very possible.)
 
An ASB/Fantasy situation:

Mars has an inhabitable environment but there is no petroleum or coal there. However, Uranium and Plutonium are plentiful. During the 1960s and 70s the USA, EEC USSR/Warsaw Pact and China start colonizing Mars. WWIII happens but it is restricted to Earth as the Martian colonial governors sit out the war. Mars becomes united under a federation and sports a pacifist Nuclearpunk society. 100 years later, United Mars is recolonizing Earth which has been reduced to warring statelets.

I like it!:D Can I have a TL? Or otherwise, may I use it if I get ideas?:D
 
The larger problem is that the progression from steam to petroleum is pretty obvious - and you need the knowhow from steam in order to make effective use of nuclear energy, so you can't skip over it. You need to explain why the easy, logical answer gets passed over in favor of a more dangerous and difficult technology.

The closest thing you can get is an analogue to what happens all over the Third World right now - where telephone lines are taken out or never installed in favor of cell towers, because the new tech got cheap before the old tech could be installed.

Even then, total replacement is improbable, because there are some applications where an internal combustion engine is simply the best option. You're not going to get atomic motorbikes and lawn-mowers.
 
The major hurdle for this, IMVHO, is the supply of fissionables. Refining Uranium 235, making Plutonium 239, or making Uranium 233 are all very difficult processes, requiring both an understanding of the structure of the atom and massive technological resources.

An ASB aproach would be to have a higher proportion of U-235 in the earth, allowing fission with unrefined Uranium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_reactor

It would still be formidable to discover it, but perhaps an outside possibility. And the sweet thing--reactors yes, bombs, NO. Not until a decent understanding came about of what's going on. (Dirty bombs, however, would be very possible.)
Umm... No, that wouldn't work, either.

The natural reactor worked because U235 decays MUCH faster than U238, and thus there was a LOT more U235 in Uranium then.

If there was 10x as much U235 in Uranium now, there would have be that much more 4 billion years ago - and that would make Uranium ores ... interesting.

A slightly different tack would be if evolution happened a LOT faster, and intelligent life, although obviously not humans, was forming a civilization 3 billion years ago...
 
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