China plans world’s first fusion-fission power plant

Comments

• Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  This… seems… highly theoretical.

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  • Quazatron@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    It’s… It’s well within limits. Sustaining sequence.

    Oh. Oh dear.

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    • Simulation6@sopuli.xyz ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Is that a resonance cascade? Don’t see those every day.

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  • CosmoNova@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    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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    • Wobble@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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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    • balder1991@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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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  • MangoCats@feddit.it ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I’d like to see a followup story published sometime other than the first of April.

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• singletona@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  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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  • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    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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    • cynar@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      This is one of the biggest frustrations with nuclear power. The first power plants had issues (mostly due to them being bomb factory designs). We learnt from that, and designed better ones. They never got built. They were swamped in red tape and delays until they died.

      Decades later, China comes in and just asks nicely. The designs work fine. China now leads the way, built on research we left to rot.

      It’s also worth noting that there is a big difference between a fusion power plant and a fission one. China is doing active research on it, as is the west. There’s quite a friendly rivalry going on. We have also basically cracked fusion now. We just need to scale it up. The only big problem left is the tokamakite issue. The neutron radiation put off by the reaction transmutes the walls. Using radioactive materials as a buffer is an idea I’ve not heard of. I’m curious about the end products. A big selling point of fusion is the lack of long term waste. Putting a fission reaction in there too might lose that benefit.

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    • singletona@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      permits, zoning, human lives, environmental concerns…

      Here’s hoping it doesn’t go boom.

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• Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  also known as a hydrogen bomb.

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  • HeavyRaptor@lemmy.zip ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    It seems like the opposite: fission triggered by fusion

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    • eleitl@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Yes, the uranium tamper in a fusion weapon. Half of the energy in a fusion weapon comes from fast neutron fission, mostly in U-238. It’s not a chain reaction.

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  • endofline@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    This is uncontrolled reaction. Chinese and other countries plan to be able to conduct the controlled reaction

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• ProphetAlex2@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  So it’s a fission reaction boosted by fusion?

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  • Allero@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Essentially yes.

    Normally, the amount of neutrons generated in a fusion reactor is an issue. Here it is an asset.

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• peoplebeproblems@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  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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  • eleitl@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    No, we do this in a fusion weapon. Half of its energy output is from fast neutron fission of the uranium tamper.

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  • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    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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    • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I meant that we use neutron breeders to turn certain fuel rod waste into fissile plutonium I think.

      The difference with the Chinese invention is that you don’t need to transport the waste to a separate breeder.

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    • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Isn’t a Dyson Sphere supposed to use solar panels? I don’t know how you would find enough water to cover the interior of an object with the radius of the Earth

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• dzso@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  This seems like a good step on the way to developing the technology necessary to build a fission plant in the future.

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  • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I’m sure China will share a lot of technological innovations as well

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    • explodicle@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Everybody has been stealing each other’s nuclear secrets for decades.

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