Vapour Drive

Vapour Drive is the system of energy production whereby particles of water vapour are broken into hydrogen ions that power a hydrogen fusion reactor. Vapour Drive is sometimes an informal synonymn for the reactors used in the process, although technically the reactor complex is called a Fusion Furnace.

Workings

The name generally refers to the system used on airships, although the system used by floatrock-bound power stations is mostly the same. The system is composed of three components: the Ramscoop, the Reducer and the Reactor. In floatrock installations, the role of the Ramscoop is replaced by a water feed, typically from a Cloud Farm, that supplies necessary fuel.

Molecules of water in liquid or gas form are piped to the Reducer. The Reducer converts this to Deutrium and Tritium (among other byproducts such as oxygen), which is then fed to a bundle of fusion reactors known as the Fusion Furnace. These are configured in various ways to fuse the reactants into different elements at differing rates of energy production, with products ranging from helium up to iron. The produced energy is then used to drive the ships systems, including the Reducer. For this reason, a small amount of hydrogen fuel is usually kept in a reserve reservoir for starting the reactors, should they be shut down.

In the moist skies of Azimuth, vapour drive can work almost indefinitely, although it is more productive in cloud than 'open sea'. Also, as the source of nearly all power generation, water is an essential and highly valued resource throughout the world, collected by the industry of cloud farming.

Because of the immense energies locked into the fusion furnace, the death of a vapour drive system (such as through airship destruction) is usually accompanied by a catastrophic white explosion with a shockwave that can tear a ship apart if it remains too close.