China plans world’s first fusion-fission power plant
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The fusion-fission hybrid will use high-energy neutrons produced by a fusion reaction to trigger fission in surrounding materials thereby boosting energy output and potentially reducing long-lived nuclear waste.
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T [email protected] shared this topic
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This... seems... highly theoretical.
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It's... It's well within limits. Sustaining sequence.
Oh. Oh dear.
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In the sense that it does use more of the fuel, like a breeder reactor, that's good. We need to stop claiming 95% good fuel to be "waste" that needs to be stored for a long time and instead just use it all up.
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Essentially yes.
Normally, the amount of neutrons generated in a fusion reactor is an issue. Here it is an asset.
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Well you see. Mega projects in authoritarian countries rarely solve actual problem or serve a purpose. They‘re just there to make good headlines and be forgotten because the next mega project or innovation just made the news!
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I'm sure China will share a lot of technological innovations as well
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Wait wait wait wait.
Don't we already do this? Just right now we don't do it in the same reactor?
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The other benefit I can think of is keeping the fissile materials always sub critical. You don't have to worry about a meltdown if the reaction is self-sustaining. It's an odd marrying of technologies, but I think people are being too dismissive.
Although, I wonder if the true purpose of such a device would be high output breeding of fuel for weapons use.
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Are we saying things like the three gorges dam, china canals, and rail, are all just for show and don't serve a purpose?
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OK. Here's the real question.
Are they sharing that research? I ask because if we can all get our heads out of our asses on energy production that kinda... wipes out a major reason for wars. Oh sure there are lots of OTHER reasons, but getting that off the table of excuses would be nice.
Also using fission materials as a way to shield the fusion reaction is a damned interesting way of getting around the spalling problem of the fusion reaction destroying its containment walls.
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I'm pretty sure they aren't doing the design part of the research. A lot of the "new" designs that China has been testing recently, have been sitting on US and European shelves for decades, like since the late '60s and early '70s. There's just not really a way, in the West, to legally set up a test reactor. China can just ignore things like permits and zoning.
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Not that I'm aware of. All our power plants are just plain old nuclear energy boiling water. We're gonna use a damn Dyson Sphere to boil water......
We have bombs that use a similar starting mechanism, but they aren't exactly useful energy production.
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permits, zoning, human lives, environmental concerns...
Here's hoping it doesn't go boom.
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It’s more accurate to say they might be, but not necessarily. China is very aware of the benefits of keeping ahead technologically.
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They don't usually go boom so much as ticky ticky ticky on the Geiger counters, maybe a little glow in the night too...
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I'd like to see a followup story published sometime other than the first of April.
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Partially yes absolutely. Some regions with more and more dams have recently experienced devastating floods, suggesting they‘ve tempered with nature a little too much. And yes, some of those new highspeed rails are barely ever used and mainly serve a symbolic purpose, namely connecting outer regions to the Beijing in some way or form. Nearly nobody uses those and the best case scenario for them would be a war so they can transport masses of troops quickly.
