Comments on: Nuclear Fusion to Power the World?

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 07:39:30 +0000

The following information was provided by my daugher Caroline Marohasy:

http://www-fusion-magnetique.cea.fr/gb/fusion/surete01.htm#ch2

The above link provides information on fusion from a waste perspective, and I quote, “Fuels used in a fusion reactor are abundant, equally spread throughout the world and have a high energy density. Deuterium is extracted from seawater and the reserves are estimated at several million years. In a fusion reaction, the tritium will be manufactured in-situ from the lithium, which is very abundant in the earth’s crust and in the oceans. Consequently, none of the basic fuels, deuterium and lithium, nor the product of the reaction, helium (a neutral gas), is radioactive. If we exclude the initial start-up, which needs an initial load of tritium, a fusion reactor does not involve the transport of radioactive material.

At the end of a fusion reactor’s life, the materials surrounding the plasma, and constituting the structure of the reactor will be radioactive. As regards environmental impact, the choice of low activation material (i.e.with rapid decay time) for these structural elements minimises the quantities of radioactive waste. After a period of 100 years following the definitive shutdown of the reactor, most (even all) of the materials can be considered as waste with very low radioactivity (satisfying norms of declassification of nuclear waste defined by the AIEA and recommended by the European Commission) or recycled in the nuclear sector.”

By: rog

rog — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 03:35:20 +0000

The Economist puts the cost of the fusion reactor at some $5 billion on construction, $5 billion on operating costs over 20 years and more than $1 billion on decommissioning. The conclusion is that the benefits are only political. http://www.economist.com/science/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=4127211

By: Louis Hissink

Louis Hissink — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 11:28:18 +0000

As for those of us involved in Plasma science, Fusion and Fission are non starters.

The Sun is better explained as an a Anode in a cosmic scale electric circuit. Occam’s razor is applicable.

(My secret fetish is plasma physics).

By: rossco

rossco — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 06:38:54 +0000

Some information on what is happening is at http://www.WantToKnow.info/050629nuclearfusionreactor Clearly a long term project and we all have to wait to see the outcome.

By: Graham Young

Graham Young — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 06:15:52 +0000

There’s tritium, apparently, and whatever material the reactor is made of. Depending on how you confine the reaction there are different possibilities for the construction materials. Carbon can possibly be used, and vanadium. Half lives are less than those for the materials produced by fission, but you are still producing radioactive waste which has to be disposed of in some way.

By: Sylvia Else

Sylvia Else — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 05:14:58 +0000

Yes, a promising technology that has been promising, but not delivering, for decades.

I wouldn’t want to see research stopped, because viable fusion power would create huge opportunities. But it would be a bad idea to make plans based on its imminent existence.

Any working fusion reactor is likely to make its components radioactive, whether or not its fuel is. This is already a problem with particle accelerators.

By: Ender

Ender — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 03:14:21 +0000

Jennifer – because the current fusion experiments use tritium the components inside the the magnetic bottle get bombarded with neutrons causing them to become radioactive. This would have to be disposed of when the reactor was de-commisioned.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 02:45:48 +0000

Graham, What sort of waste is produced by nuclear fusion?
Nataraj, So you think it is a question of time – but that one day it might be a reality, electricity from nuclear fusion that is?

By: nataraj

nataraj — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 02:29:19 +0000

Many billions of dollars has already been spent on this technology without it producing more power than it consumes. Optimistically it will be decades before this can be a reliable source of energy.

By: Graham Young

Graham Young — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 01:17:24 +0000

You’re painting a very rosy picture of fusion energy, with some inaccuracies. For example, it’s not true to say that it doesn’t produce nuclear waste.

I wouldn’t count on it being a reliable power source for some time, if ever, either. They’ve been trying for over 50 years to produce industrial fusion power with no success.

I wouldn’t be surprised if during my lifetime (assuming I’ve got about 50 years left) the only viable form of fusion energy continues to be solar. But good luck to the ITER consortium. Pity Australia isn’t part of it.