Fusion Nuclear Reactor to get the Green Light

[SpeedFreak]

I doubt the capital cost would remain high, demand would obviously lead more efficient and higher volume processing, therefore reducing cost.
As a byproduct of a fusion reaction involving deuterium and tritium, helium and a neutron are created highly energised. This neutron is the key part of creating the tritium, and is presently a byproduct of nuclear reactors. The more fuel you use in your fusion reaction, the more tritium you can make as a by-product.

 

[Burnsy2023]

I understand that it is abundant, but what captial infrastructure is needed to provide it.

That's a good point, but surely the investment is a small issue for something that could potentially save the planet?

Burnsy

 

[Tunney]

So what are the chances of there being a resonance cascade?

 

[clv101]

I doubt the capital cost would remain high, demand would obviously lead more efficient and higher volume processing, therefore reducing cost.
As a byproduct of a fusion reaction involving deuterium and tritium, helium and a neutron are created highly energised. This neutron is the key part of creating the tritium, and is presently a byproduct of nuclear reactors. The more fuel you use in your fusion reaction, the more tritium you can make as a by-product.

You need to look at the numbers. Something like a 220kg per year of tritium will be consumed for every 1GW of continuous electrical generation. To get a sense of scale today's global average is around 1700GW.

220kg per year doesn't sound to much? Well nearly all the worlds supply of non-military tritium comes from the heavy water used to moderate CANDU reactors and some of these will be closing down in the near future. The supply accumulated over 40 years of operation of CANDU reactors will peak in 2027 at 27kg.

Military reactors designed for tritium production produced only a few kilograms a year at a cost of about $200M/kg ($200,000 per g). PlacidCasual's price seems VERY low! About 4g is used in each H-bomb to increase yield.

The US had a number of military reactors at its Savannah River site especially designed for tritium production but the last of these was closed down in 1988. It is believed that over 220kg of tritium was produced there over the years but that there was only about 73kg in 1995 which will have now decayed to about 37kg. It is unlikely the US military will release any of this for civil fusion power.

Notes taken from this article we ran last year:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2164