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True, but if we can crack fusion energy, we can stop burning fossil fuels and we might even have ample energy to extract CO2 from the atmosphere.
by andruby 5y ago
True, but if we can crack fusion energy, we can stop burning fossil fuels and we might even have ample energy to extract CO2 from the atmosphere.
- orangepurple 5y agoWe already have the capability to economically capture atmospheric carbon with existing nuclear power generation systems
- antisthenes 5y ago<poignant joke about being able to capture atmospheric carbon since the dawn of time>
- Filligree 5y agoFusion produces a lot more radiation than fission, AIUI. What makes you think it will be any more politically viable to scale out than fission reactors?
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoThere is no nuclear waste, what radiation are you measuring to come to this conclusion? neutrons that dissapear the moment the reactor switches off?
- Filligree 5y agoActivation of the reactor walls. The neutrons don't disappear; they're absorbed, and some fraction of the atoms that absorb them become radioactive themselves. I've seen lifetime estimates ranging from five to ten years for the walls, after which they'll be high-level waste.
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoIsn't the breeding blanket suppose to prevent that?
- willis936 5y agoThe breeding blanket does slow the neutrons, but there needs to be a first wall material that does not ablate into the plasma. You need very little of non-hydrogen material in the vacuum to cause a density collapse. If you made the wall out of liquid lithium then there would be a lot of lithium in the plasma. Tungsten is a good choice for a first wall material because of its uniquely high melting point, low rate of embrittlement in high neutron flux, and short-lived radioisotopes.
- Lev1a 5y ago> What makes you think it will be any more politically viable to scale out than fission reactors? IIRC a major difference would be the danger potential in case of a "meltdown", since a fusion reactor wouldn't have kilograms or even tons of uranium etc. laying around to form another elephant's foot but "just" the irradiated reactor vessel which AIUI is both not as dangerous or as long-lived as fission fuel, a fission reactor itself and fission waste products. Also IIRC the actual "meltdown" of a fusion reactor would involve the reaction environment (extremely high temperatures and pressures) breaking down at which point the reaction stops almost immediately no longer producing any additional radiation or waste products, leaving only the already irradiated reactor vessel to deal with since the comparatively tiny volume of reactant(s) (probably one or more different Hydrogen isotopes) and reaction product(s) (probably Helium) will escape quickly and with pretty much no harm done.