On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 4:17 PM, Alan Fletcher <[email protected]> wrote:
Not to mention Hot Fusion's dirty little secret -- all those neutrons make > the entire structure radioactive .... which the wiki article describes as a > "very short halflife" of ........ FIFTY YEARS !!! > I noticed that. The article referred to ITER's type of fusion as "clean" and "safe." The reaction ITER uses involves deuterium and tritium, and you get 4He and a large flux of neutrons. The neutrons go on to activate the reactor wall, embrittling it and requiring periodic maintenance. Perhaps it is reasonable to call this kind of fusion clean in relation to fission, but the label makes it easy to lose sight of the fact that it is not all that clean. Eric
