The Scientific Nuclear Power Debate.
- Thread starter Abaddon
- Start date
AL_DA_GREAT
amour absinthe révolution
And how bad would it be if they had just put a fence around it.
How much does it cost to 'clean up' the coal mines in West Virginia and Montana? I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's an order of magnitude more. 
In case someone hasn't said it yet fusion is the wtg.
Pros
Cons:
Pros
- Fuel: sea water (deuterium, or more precisely heavy water) and lithium (to make tritium)
- Waste: radioactive Tritium: half life 12.32 years, decays into helium. Amount produced,virtually none in the waste products, most of it will build up in the reactor meaning it will have to be cleaned every x years. Actual amount of waste minimal. Also tritium can be reused as fuel. Plus Helium (inert).
- Amount of fuel on Earth: comparatively inexhaustible, about a million years of lithium which is also fairly abundant in our solar system. Sea water, inexhaustable.
- Safety of reactor: chain reaction or breakaway fusion is impossible, the reactor will shut down if fuel is not introduced, leaving it completely inert apart from residual heat and relatively low level radioactivity. A terrorist strike is unlikely to be any more damaging to the environment than a strike against a coal/gas station.
- Cost: once up an running comparable to nuclear, if waste processing is included substantially less.
- Cannot use it's waste products to make weapons.
- Because of the low cost of fuel 1% efficiency would pay for itself in a sufficient time frame, although 1% efficiency has only been obtained once and the result has yet to be repeated since that reactor shut down.
Cons:
- Currently not efficient.
- Research costs are prohibitive and it may even not pan out.
- Technological limitation make the process limited to only advanced countries without aid projects.
Er I can't think of many more?
What you mean like ITER and all the other fusion generators? They've made them and run them that isn't the issue the issue is efficiency, more energy out than in and sustainable reactions, current estimates say it may be feasible by 2030, although its possible it may well not work, current work seems promising.
http://www.iter.org/
This is a proposal for a joint engine to be built, lots of images here that show it's internal design. This basically a larger version of other generators that already work. It is thought the reactors construction will be under way by late 2008 although this is not a certainty as all sorts of political wrangling needs to be overcome first. It could be delayed for a while.
http://www.iter.org/pics/ITER_col.jpg
Fusion engines have already been produced on a smaller scale though and have run successfully if not efficiently.
