3 ms·

Oops, I clarified my point above while you were responding. See last two paragraphs above. Fission is expensive because of radiation hazards. Fusion is expensi

• pfdietz 7y ago
  Now you are claiming that not only fission products make fission expensive, they do so in a way that is immune to engineering solution (unlike, you are saying, the problems of fusion.) I cannot understand how this makes any sense. Fusion reactors will be regulated by the same regulators as fission reactors. The NRC has already said that fusion reactors fall under their purview. Tritium release alone would be sufficient to ensure they will be regulated -- the tritium burned by a 1GW(e) fusion reactor in a year would be enough (if all released) to raise 2 months of the flow of the entire Mississippi river above the legal limits for tritium contamination in drinking water. Fusion reactors will be regulated to contain even small amounts of tritium, and this will not be cheap. I explained already why the redundancy and expensive reliability engineering of fission plants will also be necessary for fusion. It's not for the reason of safety, but because any breakdown in the hands-off part of a fusion plant will be catastrophic for the economics of the plant. Fusion is starting way behind fission in the struggle to be sufficiently reliable, because fusion reactors are so much larger, under much higher stress, and are much more complex.