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I would not rush to call fusion "clean". But it would be an amazing power source.
by jostmey 14y ago
I would not rush to call fusion "clean". But it would be an amazing power source.
- DennisP 14y agoIt's pretty close. Has a high neutron flux that makes your equipment radioactive, but there's no waste from the fuel itself. If one of the boron fusion projects works out, we won't even have the neutron flux.
- Daniel_Newby 14y agoIIRC, the neutron branching fraction for the proton-boron reaction is around 1%. So it is not clean, but the flux is low enough not to do much damage to the walls of the fusion chamber.
- DennisP 14y agoTrue. It would need a bit of shielding. Some of the picosecond laser papers say the total radioactivity per megawatt would be less than what's released by burning coal, which contains a little thorium and uranium. Here's an abstract that mentions that: http://www.davidpublishing.com/journals_show_abstract.html?7377-0 http://www.davidpublishing.com/journals_show_abstract.html?7... (Google will turn up plenty of full papers though.)
- adaml_623 14y agoLess radioactivity release than coal I think. Due to the levels of radioactive material naturally occurring in coal deposits.