3 ms·
This seems like a great explanation, but it’s missing one key data point — how much tritium is actually present in the plasma at any one moment? From Iter.org;
by zaroth 6y ago
This seems like a great explanation, but it’s missing one key data point — how much tritium is actually present in the plasma at any one moment?
From Iter.org;
> Only a few grams of fuel are present in the plasma at any given moment. This makes a fusion reactor incredibly economical in its fuel consumption and also confers important safety benefits to the installation.
Consider me not particularly worried.
https://www.iter.org/sci/FusionFuels https://www.iter.org/sci/FusionFuels
- bronson 6y agoHow many thousands of grams of tritium are transported and stored onsite to supply the reactor? You should be a little worried.
- zaroth 6y agoTritium can be stored as a solid metal tritide. You can use several different metals but titanium seems to offer the best cost/benefit. A 7" diameter cylinder 16" high weighing 35 pounds can store 300 grams of tritium safely for 5 years (without releasing any decay helium). It's totally stable at room temperature, stable in water, and needs to be heated to ~600C to add/remove tritium. The decay heat output of 300g of tritium is ~100 watts, so the vessel should probably have some heatsinks and be ventilated. About 300g of tritium will be required per day to produce 800 MW of power. https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/26/045/26045388.pdf https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/...