In the case of the HCLL reactor with lead as multiplier,
various Pb isotopes are produced in the (n, 2n) reaction
[26], and there is no α-particle emission. The amount of
helium produced annually remains at 0.39 t.
Fission reactors need to use helium as a coolant too though if they’re high temperature (like gas reactors) and they don’t produce shit except waste.
I would like to push back on the “waste” production of nuclear fission. Much of that “waste” contains useful, fissile material that could be used in breeder reactors for even more power and lower half life “waste” further down the chain. We don’t do this in America because we mostly care about the military benefits of nuclear fission production and eschewed research funding for breeder reactors. China and Russia are much better in this regard and have a handful of functional breeders. It’s mostly the politics that makes nuclear power unsafe.
Here’s a thing about potential: you can only be certain of it after you’ve solved these “engineering challenges”. Does tritium breeding factor, EROEI and material footprint (all mined, transported and processed using fossil fuels) mean a thing to you? These factors are not specific to fusion, but they’re the most challenging for fusion reactors of currently known designs.
You’re right, but simultaneously your rhetoric is completely defeatist before we’ve even identified what can be solved. We won’t know the potential until it’s solved but you also can’t be sure of the cost.
Collapse is called a predicament rather than merely a problem, precisely because it is a tangled complex of problems that has no solution. See https://escholarship.org/uc/energy_ambitions for why it is so. Or, rather, don’t, since if you get it, all you get is a massive depression for your pains.
Notice that we’re also running out of time, so things feasible in principle are not reachable in the time window still at our disposal. The next 2-3 decades should make that clearer.
Yes you’ve provided a list of engineering challenges that everyone is aware of. It doesn’t change the potential.
It was a joke, but fusion technically produces helium even if it also consumes it for cooling.
https://nomad-laboratory.de/uploads/publications/th/Fusion-Helium_supply_20131213.pdf
Fission reactors need to use helium as a coolant too though if they’re high temperature (like gas reactors) and they don’t produce shit except waste.
I would like to push back on the “waste” production of nuclear fission. Much of that “waste” contains useful, fissile material that could be used in breeder reactors for even more power and lower half life “waste” further down the chain. We don’t do this in America because we mostly care about the military benefits of nuclear fission production and eschewed research funding for breeder reactors. China and Russia are much better in this regard and have a handful of functional breeders. It’s mostly the politics that makes nuclear power unsafe.
Here’s a thing about potential: you can only be certain of it after you’ve solved these “engineering challenges”. Does tritium breeding factor, EROEI and material footprint (all mined, transported and processed using fossil fuels) mean a thing to you? These factors are not specific to fusion, but they’re the most challenging for fusion reactors of currently known designs.
You’re right, but simultaneously your rhetoric is completely defeatist before we’ve even identified what can be solved. We won’t know the potential until it’s solved but you also can’t be sure of the cost.
Collapse is called a predicament rather than merely a problem, precisely because it is a tangled complex of problems that has no solution. See https://escholarship.org/uc/energy_ambitions for why it is so. Or, rather, don’t, since if you get it, all you get is a massive depression for your pains.
Notice that we’re also running out of time, so things feasible in principle are not reachable in the time window still at our disposal. The next 2-3 decades should make that clearer.