3 ms·

Doesn’t that depend on how cheap fusion may eventually get though?

panick21_ 4y ago
Well we can only speculated, but if you really think threw it, there is no reason what so ever that fusion should be cheaper. Maybe Aneutronic fusion but we are not even close enough to that do an even estimation. Lets go threw the major costs of a power plant. - Building the primary plant - Operations in form of maintenance and salary. - Fuel cost (including transportation and so on) Now lets start with fuel cost. If we are talking about an advanced breeder fission reactor, thorium or natural uranium is basically free. Thorium is a waste product of Rare Earth mining, we have far more then we could ever use already. This material needs to be devolved into some salt. Fusion on the other hand will need to breed its fuel. That would basically require to mine lithium and then circulate it around an already existing fusion reactor. That possible but doesn't sound exactly cheap, it would be an incredibly complex process. So on fuel cost, fission wins pretty clearly. In terms of building the plant, if you look at some basic assumptions about a bill of materials, its pretty clear as well. Many advanced fission reactors are not much more then a big bucket of some sort of steel alloy (stainless steal or some sort of nickel alloy). Not more complex then many advanced materials used in airplane or rocket construction. Its more of an issue with qualification then production. Inside of that bucket you are gone have some graphite tubes or some other metal tubes. That bucket is likely filled with some molten salt, not so much different from molten toothpaste. Now compare this to a containment facility that needs to literally contain the heat a small sun. Not only do you need a magnetic containment that consists of large of highly advanced materials but you also need a physical material that can be blasted by a small sun. What's cheaper to build, a bucket full of hot toothpaste or a complex shaped object that contains a small sun? In terms of operations, a modern load following breeder needs very little refueling. Depending on the exact design you might even just continuously refuel and all you would have to do is dump some additional thorium into the salt. In some designs you need a crane to shuffle around fuel tubes every so often. Not sure how commercial operation of a fusion reactor would exactly work and how automated you could do all of that. I don't think we have enough information to really estimate that. However its hart to see how much easier it would be then a fission reactor. So I think in all major cost aspects, fission looks better. The real advantage of fusion is 3 order of magnitude higher density. But fission fuel is essentially free and dense enough that transporting it is absolute non issue, so not sure how increase density really helps fusion. So I'm not against fusion research, I think its great. But we need to do research, not obsess about trying to build commercial fusion power.

Well we can only speculated, but if you really think threw it, there is no reason what so ever that fusion should be cheaper. Maybe Aneutronic fusion but we are not even close enough to that do an even estimation. Lets go threw the major costs of a power plant. - Building the primary plant - Operations in form of maintenance and salary. - Fuel cost (including transportation and so on) Now lets start with fuel cost. If we are talking about an advanced breeder fission reactor, thorium or natural uranium is basically free. Thorium is a waste product of Rare Earth mining, we have far more then we could ever use already. This material needs to be devolved into some salt. Fusion on the other hand will need to breed its fuel. That would basically require to mine lithium and then circulate it around an already existing fusion reactor. That possible but doesn't sound exactly cheap, it would be an incredibly complex process. So on fuel cost, fission wins pretty clearly. In terms of building the plant, if you look at some basic assumptions about a bill of materials, its pretty clear as well. Many advanced fission reactors are not much more then a big bucket of some sort of steel alloy (stainless steal or some sort of nickel alloy). Not more complex then many advanced materials used in airplane or rocket construction. Its more of an issue with qualification then production. Inside of that bucket you are gone have some graphite tubes or some other metal tubes. That bucket is likely filled with some molten salt, not so much different from molten toothpaste. Now compare this to a containment facility that needs to literally contain the heat a small sun. Not only do you need a magnetic containment that consists of large of highly advanced materials but you also need a physical material that can be blasted by a small sun. What's cheaper to build, a bucket full of hot toothpaste or a complex shaped object that contains a small sun? In terms of operations, a modern load following breeder needs very little refueling. Depending on the exact design you might even just continuously refuel and all you would have to do is dump some additional thorium into the salt. In some designs you need a crane to shuffle around fuel tubes every so often. Not sure how commercial operation of a fusion reactor would exactly work and how automated you could do all of that. I don't think we have enough information to really estimate that. However its hart to see how much easier it would be then a fission reactor. So I think in all major cost aspects, fission looks better. The real advantage of fusion is 3 order of magnitude higher density. But fission fuel is essentially free and dense enough that transporting it is absolute non issue, so not sure how increase density really helps fusion. So I'm not against fusion research, I think its great. But we need to do research, not obsess about trying to build commercial fusion power.