Comment on Japanese experimental nuclear fusion reactor inaugurated

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ryrybang@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

It improves the waste issue, doesn’t really solve it. A dirty, little-discussed secret about fusion power.

If we had a bunch of fusion plants go live, we’d soon have tons and tons of radioactive containment wall material to bury/store somewhere. Including all the special handling requirements that you need with fuel rod waste. I think fusion plants would actually create more waste than a comparable fission plant, at least as far as tons of radioactive material.

The benefit is that waste would be lighter isotopes and degrade faster. So you have more physical material to worry about but only need to worry about it for ~100 years, not thousands.

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