Re:ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly
by willis936 on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @10:43PM
(#23983040)
Well, fusion has the benefit of having much lower operating costs. Violent terminations, quench events, and tritium containment breaches are serious concerns, but a risk assessment of a fusion power plant would give a much cozier feeling than a risk assessment of a fission power plant.
The neutron activated materials are safe after a century and there is not much of it.
All of the cost in a fusion plant sits on manufacturing and maintenance. If you can build a GWe plant for $30Bn or less, then it’s a no brainer. The five trillion dollar question is how much investment fusion power research needs before we get to that point.
Re:ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly
by pfdietz on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @12:33AM
(#23983540)
Fusion will likely have much MUCH higher operating cost. Fusion reactors are fearsomely complex things that will be too radioactive for hands on maintenance. They will be operating at much higher levels of radiation damage and thermal stress than fission reactors. That all adds up to a reliability and maintainability nightmare. The fuel being cheap doesn't mitigate this.
Also, the need to replace major reactor components many times over the life of the reactor, due to cumulative neutron damage, will itself cause very large operating costs.
Remember how nuclear fission was going to be "too cheap to meter"? Turned out it's expensive to build and operate the plants, regardless of how cheap the fuel is.