Re:General Fusion to build demonstration plant in UK
by mikro2nd on Thursday June 17, 2021 @12:08PM
(#27541182)
What is the sort of lifetime (ball-park) that one might expect before neutron saturation of the reactor walls becomes a serious concern and the reactor has to be scrapped?
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Re:General Fusion to build demonstration plant in UK
by meowkit on Thursday June 17, 2021 @12:30PM
(#27541465)
You can read about stuff like that in some of the ITER technical reports. They actually want to use that neutron radiation to generate tritium, and feed that back into the reactor.
I don’t think the reactor would be scrapped, just shutdown for maintenance.
Re:General Fusion to build demonstration plant in UK
by eloff on Thursday June 17, 2021 @01:14PM
(#27541963)
I imagine you just replace the shielding on the inner walls, not the entire reactor.
Re:General Fusion to build demonstration plant in UK
by Symmetry on Thursday June 17, 2021 @07:33PM
(#27545654)
The General Fusion design covers the walls with a molten mix of lead and lithium held in place by spinning the chamber. The lithium turns to tritium when you bang on it with a neutron to crease more inputs to the D-T fusion process. And lead doesn't really mind getting hit with neutrons. From the diagrams on Wikipedia[1] it looks like there is some normal metal exposed which might get neutron activated.
Re:General Fusion to build demonstration plant in UK
by collaborative on Thursday June 17, 2021 @09:10PM
(#27546313)
The liner is liquid metal