4 ms·
As far as I understand there is a nuclear waste problem, since neutrons are generated which activate the hull significantly. Neutron cannot be deflected. But I
by andi999 6y ago
As far as I understand there is a nuclear waste problem, since neutrons are generated which activate the hull significantly. Neutron cannot be deflected.
But I dont believe this is the show stopper why progress is slow. To me it feels more like people know ther e is a technical insurmountable problem ahead (like how to efficiently enough transform the energy to electricity; actually really wondering how this should be scalable) and people involved do not want to reach that point.
- mulmen 6y agoIsn't the energy converted to electricity by heating water and generating steam then doing any number of well understood things like spinning turbines?
- s1artibartfast 6y agoGetting the heat from neutrons randomly flying out of the reactor to water is a hard problem. The current thought is to cool the reactor with liquid lithium, which itself will be undergoing fission and releasing helium during the process. The liquid lithium and helium would then be pumped through water cooled heat exchanger and some sort of filtering process to remove the helium. Also, all of the plumbing and materials have to withstand radiation 100 times that found in fission reactors. I’m not saying it is impossible, but they won’t be working on it until ITERs successor sometime in the 2050s
- aidenn0 6y agoIs there a reason graphite won't work? It's conductive, stable and extracts thermal energy from neutrons fairly reliably in fusion reactors.
- s1artibartfast 6y agoI have no clue, but would love to know.
- tedsanders 6y agoI hesitate to speculate, but one possibility is that for large reactors you have so much heat that you need heat exchange by liquids rather than solids or gases or non-atomic particles. My understanding is that solids are bad because electrons and phonons cannot carry as much energy as atoms. Gases are bad because they don't have enough atoms. This leaves liquids as best, which is why we so often see liquid cooling in animals and machinery.
- andi999 6y agoSo letting the lithium flowing near the plasma?
- jabl 6y agoWater is fine as a cooling medium, the reason for the lithium blanket stuff is to produce tritium for fuel.
- aidenn0 6y agoThat is one proposed path; another is direct conversion of high-energy particles to electricity. The former seems much more likely to be feasible, but the latter is potentially more efficient.