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From the talks I've been to the targeted performance of blankets is 120% and simulations predict this should be possible without prohibitively thick blankets.
by willis936 5y ago
From the talks I've been to the targeted performance of blankets is 120% and simulations predict this should be possible without prohibitively thick blankets.
ITER's TBM will be doing important work to test theory.
It isn't clear to me that external sources of tritium will be necessary. Between Li-6 fission and Be neutron multiplication there is theoretically plenty of neutrons to go around even though they aren't easy to capture.
Viability of blanket breeding hasn't been demonstrated to work yet, but my original point is that it hasn't been demonstrated to not work. I see now the "might" in your statement.
- manholio 5y agoSure, by the "it hasn't been demonstrated to not work" standard the whole field should generate cheap electricity tomorrow. Just that it's so unimaginably, fiendishly hard to make it work, perhaps the most challenging technical problem in history. It might never work, for interesting values of never. My point was that fueling is in itself a very difficult and complex problem that has yet to be solved, far from the "it runs on seawater" popular tropes.