5 ms·

The elephant in the room: fusion is no better wrt radioactive waste than fission. ITER is projected to end up with 30000 tons of radioactive waste. https://the

by rini17 6y ago

The elephant in the room: fusion is no better wrt radioactive waste than fission. ITER is projected to end up with 30000 tons of radioactive waste. https://thebulletin.org/2018/02/iter-is-a-showcase-for-the-drawbacks-of-fusion-energy/ https://thebulletin.org/2018/02/iter-is-a-showcase-for-the-d... "Surrounding the ITER tokamak, a monstrous concrete cylinder 3.5 meters thick, 30 meters in diameter and 30 meters tall called the bioshield will prevent X-rays, gamma rays and stray neutrons from reaching the outside world. "

nucpal 6y ago
That article is quite outdated, JET has 2020 D-T campaign. More importantly, fusion is a thousand times better than fission with respect to waste. No one is claiming there is no waste at all, but tritium has a half-life of 12.5 years so most of the waste will be safe within a few decades. The rest will largely be neutron embrittled steels/materials (classified as low level nuclear waste) that is easily stored. Compare and contrast that to nuclear fission which generates high level waste, spent nuclear fuel rods and radioactive liquid which must be painstakingly petrified and processed before safe storage. Even then this waste will still be dangerous for over 100,000 years.
- rini17 6y ago
  So the waste output/power output is 1000 times better? Any sources pls? And this "Neutron embrittlement" does not create any dangerous long-lived isotopes? Like, we just wait few years and then normally landfill the concrete or how should I imagine the process?
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    Fusion creates much less long term radioactivity. However, the mass of material contaminated with radioactivity is very high, since the radioactivity that is created is not concentrated in fuel elements, as it is in a fission reactor.
  - nucpal 6y ago
    Fission creates neutron embrittled materials and steels as well. And yes we tend to store them until they can be safely disposed. Again, the main difference is the fuel. Tritium is safe in a few decades, spent uranium is safe in a few hundred thousand years.

by rini17 6y ago

nucpal 6y ago

That article is quite outdated, JET has 2020 D-T campaign. More importantly, fusion is a thousand times better than fission with respect to waste. No one is claiming there is no waste at all, but tritium has a half-life of 12.5 years so most of the waste will be safe within a few decades. The rest will largely be neutron embrittled steels/materials (classified as low level nuclear waste) that is easily stored. Compare and contrast that to nuclear fission which generates high level waste, spent nuclear fuel rods and radioactive liquid which must be painstakingly petrified and processed before safe storage. Even then this waste will still be dangerous for over 100,000 years.

rini17 6y ago
So the waste output/power output is 1000 times better? Any sources pls? And this "Neutron embrittlement" does not create any dangerous long-lived isotopes? Like, we just wait few years and then normally landfill the concrete or how should I imagine the process?
- pfdietz 6y ago
  Fusion creates much less long term radioactivity. However, the mass of material contaminated with radioactivity is very high, since the radioactivity that is created is not concentrated in fuel elements, as it is in a fission reactor.
- nucpal 6y ago
  Fission creates neutron embrittled materials and steels as well. And yes we tend to store them until they can be safely disposed. Again, the main difference is the fuel. Tritium is safe in a few decades, spent uranium is safe in a few hundred thousand years.