) and learning from them, we would eventually build something very safe, clean and inexpensive. Theoretically, if we could iterate and build prototype after prototype, making errors (accidents, leaks. Whether we blame the bureaucracy or the public sentiment, the trial and error cycle is very long and not improving. The main problem with fission is that it has a very bad learning curve. And if we're really lucky, all this technological progress will at some point get us some kind of aneutronic fusion, which has the potential to be cheaper than any other energy source we have. Not only will it progress faster, but with its inherent safety, deployment could be a lot faster (aside from tritium supply limits for D-T reactors). So over the long haul, I think fusion is far more promising. For large commercial reactors, the UK has already proposed regulations that are more akin to medical devices than fission reactors. You can build even build a tiny fusion reactor yourself and the government is fine with it, which is definitely not the case with fission. There are small startups right now that have built reactor after reactor. If you're in the US, good luck ever getting anything new and different actually built.įusion doesn't have such horrific failure modes, so progress can be faster. If you're in a country with friendly regulators you might manage to build a new reactor design in a decade. The resulting bureaucracy makes its technological progress quite slow. So it takes a lot of oversight to make sure it isn't done badly. But it can also be done very badly, in which case the failure modes can be horrific. Nevertheless, I really appreciate your replies and comments!įission can be done very well, and I wish we did more of it. I am sorry if I couldn't thank each of you individually. So any input will be appreciated! Thanks!ĮDIT: Dear all, I really want to thank everyone for their detailed replies and comments. Just asking this because I am doing a school project on it. As such, why do we not just instead decide to use these newly developed fission reactors instead of continuing to pursue fusion? However, it seems that, from what I read online, the Gen IV fission reactors (molten salt, pebble bed) have made incredible progress in reactor safety and nuclear waste management.įusion has been an incredibly tough problem to crack and we do not have a working fusion reactor. I understand from reading online that fusion reactors have benefits such as unlimited fuel, no chance of meltdown and being a 'green' source of energy. I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me why we bother ourselves with fusion reactors, when the technological advancement of fission reactors have come such a long way? Hi all! I wanted to post this on r/Physics but I thought it may be better to post this here instead. Magnetized target fusion and Magneto-Inertial fusion, hybrid approaches used by General Fusion and Helion Energy Inertial confinement, used at the National Ignition FacilityĮlectrostatic confinement, used by the fusor and Polywell devices Magnetic confinement, used in tokamak, spheromak and stellarator designs Fusion is the process that powers active or "main sequence" stars. The missing mass is released as energy in accordance with Einstein's mass-energy equivalence equations. For light elements like hydrogen or helium the fused nucleus weights less than the sum of the original nucleus. Nuclear fusion is a nuclear reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei collide together at a very high speed and form a new nucleus. Submissions should be related to nuclear fusion or plasma physics as currently understood by the scientific community. Focused on advancements in the field of nuclear fusion.
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