Nuclear

fwor

LHW99 said:

Fusion doesn't leave long lasting radioactivity behind, unlike fission reactors.

I'm not anti-fusion, but in reality I don't think this is true. It will depend on design detail but I think it's inevitable that the huge number of stray neutrons will contaminate the walls of the containment vessel, and some of those contaminants are likely to be long-lasting radioactive isotopes.

The scale of radioactive waste will be on a much, much lower scale than fission reactors, but nevertheless I doubt it would be safe to walk around inside the containment of a fusion reactor for many years after it had been turned off, so operators are still likely to have to face significant decommissioning costs (which should of course be factored into the original case for or against the project).

LHW99

fwor said:

LHW99 said:

Fusion doesn't leave long lasting radioactivity behind, unlike fission reactors.

I'm not anti-fusion, but in reality I don't think this is true. It will depend on design detail but I think it's inevitable that the huge number of stray neutrons will contaminate the walls of the containment vessel, and some of those contaminants are likely to be long-lasting radioactive isotopes.

The scale of radioactive waste will be on a much, much lower scale than fission reactors, but nevertheless I doubt it would be safe to walk around inside the containment of a fusion reactor for many years after it had been turned off, so operators are still likely to have to face significant decommissioning costs (which should of course be factored into the original case for or against the project).

Agreed. However research into the ways to minimise this is ongoing, and the lifetime of the radioactive waste components is likely to be shorter than that of spent fuel, particularly if diverter technologies can spread the irradiation