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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (21389)	5/7/1998 12:45:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Fusion requires truly spectacular temperatures and pressures for ignition. Technically, we're not there yet using either tokamaks (steady-state magnetically confined reactors) or pulsed laser facilities (intermittent power generation by what amounts to a steady string of eenyweeny hydrogen bombs lit off by these really big lasers). Even if either approach is developed to the point of generating more energy than it consumes, there are two dirty little wrinkles to this game that don't get a lot of press. 1) Tritium. This is a radioactive (half-life 12 years) isotope of hydrogen that is needed for the easiest-to-burn fusion fuel. It's a pain to handle, and you need regular fission nukes to make it. 2) Neutrons. A fusion burn makes a lot of them, and they cannot be confined. The interact with the reactor walls by a process called neutron activation. This converts some of the nonradioactive structure into radioactive isotopes. Fission reactors do the same thing. Bottom line: Both fusion and fission nuclear power are "dirty" from a radiological perspective. But a fission plant is technically much simpler, and the unburned fuel is quite storable. And when we overcome our cultural prejudice against breeding plutonium, we'll have more electricity than we could ever hope to get by burning every ounce of carbon on our planet. Without the greenhouse effect. What I'd like to see is an "open" fusion reactor. Open on one end. Makes a dandy space drive.