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The reason nuclear fission is uncompetitive is its high operating costs. The cost to build the plant is a sunk cost: if the reactor is expected to be reasonably
by reissbaker 6y ago
The reason nuclear fission is uncompetitive is its high operating costs. The cost to build the plant is a sunk cost: if the reactor is expected to be reasonably profitable to operate, you can fund building it. If the reactor is not expected to be reasonably profitable to operate... Good luck.
That's what fusion aims to solve. The fuel is plentiful and you can easily buy it; the same can't be said of uranium. It's also much safer to run than fission, and produces vastly less dangerous waste.
Perhaps your argument is that solar and wind are sufficient to power humanity's needs, without fission or fusion. That's debatable. But compared to fission, fusion is theoretically better on some pretty critical metrics — if we knew how to build a fusion reactor, which we don't yet. If you assume solar and wind won't be sufficient, fusion seems worth research.
- pfdietz 6y ago> The reason nuclear fission is uncompetitive is its high operating costs. The cost to build the plant is a sunk cost This is nonsense. You can't ignore the cost of building plants, when trying to determine if a technology is competitive. Nuclear plants have to be paid for; they're not given to us free by the Nuclear Fairy. If you include capital and financing costs, you will find they contribute more to the cost of energy from the plants than do operating costs.
- tsimionescu 6y ago> The cost to build the plant is a sunk cost: if the reactor is expected to be reasonably profitable to operate, you can fund building it. You're missing one important part: the reactor must be profitable enough so that it can recoup the build cost for its lifespan. The lifespan of fusion reactors, even disregarding failure modes, will be severely limited by the high energy neutrons which it generates, and which turn all materials brittle. And maintenance for the brittle material will mean stopping the reactor, and sending in robots to dismantle and carry away the brittle radioactive walls, and build new walls in place. It may well be about as cheap to scrap it for parts (for those parts that haven't been turned to radioactive Swiss cheese) and build a new one.