https://archive.ph/Sy1OG

  • Nephron [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Okay but why even start with fusion in the first place. Regular fission makes lots of neutrons. Like there is not a shortage of neutrons.

    If you just get enough fissionable material in one place it will make enough neutrons to keep going

    • RuthlessCriticism [comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      It allows one to use other materials for fission. Notably some nuclear waste can be used to make more energy.

      • build_a_bear_group [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I am not sure if that is true. I am not up on the specific isotopes that are traditionally considered fuel and waste, but the thing I linked is proposing a specific uranium isotope. The process works best if the fission produces a Tritium nucleus. The main this is that you are getting the bulk of energy out of the fusion, and therefore using less fission material.

    • build_a_bear_group [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      OPs article seems to imply that it is getting majority of energy from fusion, the feedback process means that they believe the can ignite it in a pulse that will quickly burn out, but produce more energy than put in. This makes it a lot easier in terms of the traditional hurdle towards fusion, that for the continuous process you need a very dense high pressure plasma, which makes the engineering hard.