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If God had wanted us to have nearly unlimited clean energy, He would have placed a fusion reactor into the sky. (feddit.org)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

For example when Russia invaded Ukraine and they attacked Chernobyl. Maybe it’s not founded in real risk. But I imagine it could be a security threat for someone to bomb a nuclear facility.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

    To alleviate your concerns - unlike fission, in a fusion reactor the only radiation comes from the active fusion process, and chamber lining that's been bombarded by radiation. The worst case is a brief spike of neutron and gamma radiation from where the chamber breaches before the plasma collapses, a small amount of short-lived radioisotopes from the chamber debris, and a bit of tritium.

    The radiation from the debris would be at background levels in a year or two, since there's no transuranic decay chains (once decay event, and it's stable again). The tritium would disperse to background levels in minutes, and the radiation burst would only be a hazard in the immediate vicinity.

    Not free from issues at all, but compared to a fission reactor the worst-case scenario isn't bad at all.

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