Question about UT power generators

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

Care to elaborate on that? How much shielding do you think you would need?

Any nuclear or neutron-producing fusion reactor should probably have around ten tenth-thicknesses of shielding, or about 2kg/cm^2 (1,000 lb/sf). Antimatter produces somewhat more penetrating radiation, so you'd want several times as much (the difference isn't that huge). This assumes you cannot find a reaction that doesn't produce a lot of penetrating radiation, this is essentially impossible for a conventional fission reaction (though certain types of catalyzed reactions might do the trick), difficult but not impossible for fusion (D-T is very high neutron, D-D is high neutron, D-3He is low neutron but not zero, p-B11 is zero; the above order is also roughly easiest to hardest), and with antimatter I don't know enough to say (proton-antiproton reactions produce pions, photons, and neutrinos, which is rather unhelpful from a shielding standpoint, but there may be interactions with heavier nuclei that produce mostly charged nuclear fragments).