No, Fusion Energy Won’t Be ‘Limitless’

wired.com

11 points·elashri··5 comments

New tech is always modest at the start. Besides, we don't need it to be limitless just cheap enough to do things like salt water desalination at scale and power the grid. That's quite modest in the big picture of what fusion can theoretically generate

The problem is fusion is the extreme opposite of cheap. Most of the reactor designs also do seem to produce radioactive waste contrary to popular belief.

Even though the reaction itself is 'clean', the massive neutron flux makes much of the surrounding material radioactive.

>The problem is fusion is the extreme opposite of cheap.

That may change given time though. Most tech starts out pretty slow, pricey and useless.

>Most of the reactor designs also do seem to produce radioactive waste contrary to popular belief.

Interesting. I guess it's a question of how radioactive. If it's moderate it might not be a big issue.

https://www.ipp.mpg.de/2769068/faq9 >After a decay time of one to five hundred years the radiotoxic content of the waste is comparable to the hazard potential of the total ash from a coal plant, which always contains natural radioactive substances.

And keep in mind that coal plants are notorious for releasing huge amounts of radiation, much more than that allowed from a fission reactor.

Combine that with the fact that China just broke ground on the CFR-600 fission reactor which is part of a plan for a closed nuclear fuel cycle which means zero nuclear waste. We have the tech for clean nuclear energy now, it seems foolish to devote so many resources to fusion.

No energy source is flawless regardless of what people say. What we need is a mix of different sources that balance out their down sides.

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