China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough

Re:China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough by arethuza on Friday November 11, 2016 @05:40AM (#12929502)

I agree - always been a bit mystified when fusion power is described as "cheap", fuel isn't a big component of the cost of fission power plants so even if the fuel is low cost it won't save you that much money.

[I guess decommissioning costs might be lower but are they actually included in the costs of operating normal nuclear plants?]

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Re:China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough by adrianN on Friday November 11, 2016 @07:23AM (#12929976)

I bet regulatory compliance is a big chunk of the costs. Those regulations are bound to be much more strict for a fission plant that can potentially blow up and contaminate a large area compared to a fusion plant with a safe failure mode by default (the plasma just shuts down).

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Re:China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough by Symmetry on Friday November 11, 2016 @08:11AM (#12930226)

The worst case scenarios for an accident at a fusion plant aren't nearly as bad as those at a fission plant so you should be able to get by with somewhat less in terms of paranoid safety measures and overbuilding.

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Re:China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough by Ygg2 on Friday November 11, 2016 @09:20AM (#12930802)

Aren't large part of that actually the waste disposal costs? With Fusion you in theory, avoid radioactive waste.

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