Flame Guns revisited...

[ffutures]

Getting back to flame pistols again

http://ffutures.livejournal.com/522696.html

I've somehow got to get enough energy from a small cheap diamond to zap an immense amount of the countryside, and bond energy simply doesn't cut it - it would be about as much as you'd get from burning the diamond or a similarly sized lump of coal with a blowtorch.

Does carbon fusion (as seen in supernovas) seem even faintly plausible as the energy source?

Comments

[ebony-silvers.livejournal.com]

Agreed on the recoil - that's going to be a bitch. Of course, even a tiny, extremely brief blast of this stuff is going to be devastating to whatever it hits so maybe that's the answer. A nano-second blast or series of blasts (though not too close together or you'll still have recoil issues) instead of any sort of sustained emission?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's described somewhat like a gout of flame from a flamethrower. And yes, recoil would be a real problem.