# Could this work as a way to harness fusion as an energy source?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-work-as-a-way-to-harness-fusion-as-an-energy-source/509325>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 8, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-work-as-a-way-to-harness-fusion-as-an-energy-source/509325 "2009-09-08T20:11:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-work-as-a-way-to-harness-fusion-as-an-energy-source/509325/1 "2009-09-08T20:11:01Z")

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This is a bit far fetched but…

imagine a giant steel container. A hollow sphere, say 5 miles in circumference filled with water. In the center you set of an H-Bomb. The H bomb vaporizes the water and now you have a giant sphere with steam at very high pressure. Then release the steam to power generators.

I know there is no practical way to build a sphere to contain such an explosion. But say we had some type of exotic material that could. And the material was a good insulator so that the heated steam would not radiate the heat from the steam through the material as a metal would. Would using an H bomb to vaporise vast quantities of water to build a giant steam engine be a good energy source?

Is there any way to calculate how many megawatts of energy could be obtained from a 1 megaton H bomb converting its heat energy to steam?