A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power • Hacker News Board

Post by nbanks » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC

credit_guy wrote: post #63

hunta2097 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great insight. I am fond of the phrase "final generation nuclear". We need 30 years of nuclear fission before we can sustain fusion. I think we're already past the point where some nuclear risk is acceptable. It's not a zero sum game - fossel fuels are already being used with risk. We need to take some (calculated) risks again.

> We need 30 years of nuclear fission before we can sustain fusion. Not sure where that comes from. I don't think we'll have competitive fusion in the next 50 years. Sure, people who talk about ITER draw (quite optimistic) plans for when we'll be able to get more from the fusion reaction than what energy we pump in, but they forget to mention that's not the end of the story. Fusion may be clean, but it's terribly ine…

The Joint European Torus had a 67% efficient reaction back in 1997. The torus wasn't designed for it, so they never tried again. It seams that ITER could achieve break-even quite realistically simply because tokamak reactors are more efficient when they're bigger. Yes, it has to be hotter than the sun and use a deuterium/tritium fuel, but it's all doable with known physics.

I'm not sure when or if a sustained reaction can be done economically.