News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab by augusto-moura on Monday December 12, 2022 @11:21AM (#33956460)
Much of fissions complexity comes from safety/damage management. Even after years of advancements we hear about some incidents and radioactive leaks every other decade.

Fusion is a much safer alternative both in incidents and fallout

Re:Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab by jemmyw on Monday December 12, 2022 @10:03PM (#33964193)
Is it? Well I guess it is because we don't have a working fusion power reactor yet so the likelihood of an accident is zero. However, if we did have a fusion reactor it would be producing a lot more radioactive waste than a fission reactor.

I definitely wouldn't want to make any broad sweeping statements about something that hasn't been built yet.

Re:Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab by augusto-moura on Tuesday December 13, 2022 @09:21AM (#33969195)
I'm a bit at a lost, can you elaborate on how fusion would produce more radioactive waste than fission? We already have a few fusion generators designs so is not a sweeping statement on something totally unknown. AFAIK, the by-product of fusing Tritium/Hydrogen is Helium, which is far from radioactive. I might imagine that some radioactive isotopes might get produced as well, but I can't imagine it being nowhere near as dangerous as spent uranium fuel and contaminated components in fission reactors.

In a case of an accident I would also imagine an explosion from a Fusion Reactor, but the fallout of it would not even close as dramatic as a Fission Reactor leak or explosion

Re:Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab by pfdietz on Tuesday December 13, 2022 @10:22AM (#33970016)
More in the sense of a larger mass and volume of activated material. Fission waste has more curies of radioisotopes, but they're concentrated in the fuel rods.