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What accident do you foresee that makes components of a fusion reactor sufficiently radio active? Containment field failure should leave the components just as
by freemint 4y ago
What accident do you foresee that makes components of a fusion reactor sufficiently radio active?
Containment field failure should leave the components just as radio active as a controlled shutdown as the plasma distinguishes immediately or am i missing something?
- ncmncm 4y agoEverything in the reactor is blasted with enormous neutron flux, inducing radioactivity in everything. A thousand tons of molten, radioactive lithium could easily ruin your day, if ever exposed to air.
- pfdietz 4y agoI don't see how the lithium itself becomes radioactive. It will be contaminated with tritium, but presumably it's designed so that can be stripped out. Otherwise... maybe atoms of higher Z elements knocked into the lithium from the first micro of pipe surfaces by recoil after neutron collisions?
- ncmncm 4y agoIt would be hard to get and keep a thousand tons of atomically pure 6Li/7Li, even without neutrons spalling pipe surface atoms into it. And, with enough neutron flux, seems like you should expect to get a fair bit of "relatively unusual" products that your regular H/He extraction process leaves to accumulate. But these are all second-order effects. A thousand tons of molten lithium is a big enough hazard even without radioactivated impurities. And even getting the 0.0000001% fraction of dissolved 3H out seems... difficult.
- pfdietz 4y agoNeutron bombardment will make the innards of the fusion reactor radioactive as part of its normal operation. No accident is required. The induced radioactivity will be so high that hands on access will be impossible, even with the reactor shut down. This will make maintenance difficult. Maybe the next big VC fad after fusion will be radiation resistant robots.