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It is, of course, the regulatory cost they want to attack. Fusion can’t continue melting down. Unlike fission. The fact that it’s much harder to get to work at
by Robotbeat 6y ago
It is, of course, the regulatory cost they want to attack. Fusion can’t continue melting down. Unlike fission. The fact that it’s much harder to get to work at all is considered kind of an advantage here because it means the reactor can’t accidentally keep producing energy when you don’t want it to. Second, if you get really good at fusion there are some reactions that don’t produce neutrons means you don’t get all this activated material. And that lack of neutrons also makes it proliferation-resistant (and can allow more compact ways of generating electricity than a typical thermal cycle). But even with the low hanging fruit type of fusion with tritium & deuterium, you don’t get these long lived transuranic isotopes. Also, fusion has some important very long term applications in human spaceflight (& interstellar travel). And the fusion fuel infrastructure is much less susceptible to being diverted to making weapons.
But overall I agree with you. Fusion makes fission look really easy, and there are advanced fission designs and processes which address most of the above issues.
- pfdietz 6y agoIf we built a fission reactor with the low power density of a fusion reactor it would be so big it couldn't melt down, just from its own thermal inertia.
- nickik 6y agoArguably a fusion reactor has a much higher chance of harming the population around as a breach in containment could release highly radioactive gases. > But even with the low hanging fruit type of fusion with tritium & deuterium, you don’t get these long lived transuranic isotopes. You don't get these in a good fission cycle either. > Also, fusion has some important very long term applications in human spaceflight (& interstellar travel). Yes but and fission has a lot of applications in human spaceflight too. And not some theoretical interstellar travel, but rather in things that are actually useful and that we need now. Mars surface power most importantly. Nuclear Electric Propulsion second most importantly. Its all fine to dream of interstellar travel, but by any logical view to world, Mars is a closer term thing then interstellar space travel. Also, if we just want to send interstellar probes. Lasers driven by fission are much more likely to be a good solution in the next 100 years.