Re:Ask HN: How would cheap, accessible nuclear fusion realis...
by PaulHoule on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @11:21AM
(#29486644)
I find it hard to believe.
The easiest kind of fusion (D+T) by far uses Deuterium and Tritium and produces copious quantities of neutrons, more than either a thermal or fast fission reactor. There is a certain thickness of shielding you need to stop the neutrons and it's not small. Handling tritium is also a pain because it is an isotope of hydrogen that will go between the atoms of many metals, get incorporated into water supplies, etc. If somebody is handling tritium at energy-production scale you will always hear about leaks to the environment even if these are "mostly harmless."
Other kinds of fusion are a lot harder. The difficulties that drive fusion reactors like ITER to be huge would drive them to be even larger. I'd imagine interstellar travelers somewhere have huge D+D reactors so they can "live off the land" on Oort cloud objects.
The easiest kind of fusion (D+T) by far uses Deuterium and Tritium and produces copious quantities of neutrons, more than either a thermal or fast fission reactor. There is a certain thickness of shielding you need to stop the neutrons and it's not small. Handling tritium is also a pain because it is an isotope of hydrogen that will go between the atoms of many metals, get incorporated into water supplies, etc. If somebody is handling tritium at energy-production scale you will always hear about leaks to the environment even if these are "mostly harmless."
Other kinds of fusion are a lot harder. The difficulties that drive fusion reactors like ITER to be huge would drive them to be even larger. I'd imagine interstellar travelers somewhere have huge D+D reactors so they can "live off the land" on Oort cloud objects.