I think the wendelstein ran net positive for a few deconds and then had to be turned off to protect it from overheating. From memory, it's being upgraded now with metal shielding. Excited to see fusion happen. A functioning fusion reactor would solve a bunch of germanies energy problems.
PaulHoule 3 days ago [-]
Not sure I believe it. Fission reactors are already too expensive and fusion reactors look worse. The one path to avoid the dieoff is probably to develop an energy source which is cheaper (counting all expenses such as storage and transportation) than fossil fuels. We need to get the people who think they can't afford eggs or to have immigrants in their country to be out with pitchforks to stop fossil fuel projects that cost too much in comparison.
The fusion reactor cannot melt down the way a fission reactor does but it has many of the same problems a fusion reactor does: the tritium used in the D+T reaction is powerfully radioactive and is difficult to contain because it is an isotope of hydrogen that can burrow its way right through metal containers and will find its way into ordinary water molecules. D+T fusion also creates a high neutron flux which will damage the reactor walls and maybe make them radioactive. If somebody wanted to make plutonium for nuclear weapons that neutron flux is highly attractive: there has been a lot of research on cycles that use a D+T fusion reactor to breed U233 or Pu238 from common materials.
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The fusion reactor cannot melt down the way a fission reactor does but it has many of the same problems a fusion reactor does: the tritium used in the D+T reaction is powerfully radioactive and is difficult to contain because it is an isotope of hydrogen that can burrow its way right through metal containers and will find its way into ordinary water molecules. D+T fusion also creates a high neutron flux which will damage the reactor walls and maybe make them radioactive. If somebody wanted to make plutonium for nuclear weapons that neutron flux is highly attractive: there has been a lot of research on cycles that use a D+T fusion reactor to breed U233 or Pu238 from common materials.