I work in nuclear. Tritium is the most significant health hazard here next to gamma from the source.
It's the exposure not the intensity. Our bodies are designed to retain water. Tritiated water is very bad. Very very bad.
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Pulsed helium3 fusion in a magnetic bottle, not lasers or same old tokawhatever...
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It's the exposure not the intensity. Our bodies are designed to retain water. Tritiated water is very bad. Very very bad.
cjcox
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Doc Ock taught me that. People need to watch relevant documentaries.
Right, let's ignore the health physicists that actually work in said industry. Documentaries ... Maybe we should ask Reddit if our doctors know what they are talking about
cjcox
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Or ask an expert, like Greta Thunberg, or maybe Jimmy Fallon.
GoodBoy
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Wow. Soo many experts in this thread!
Being contained in a magnetic field = "contained" =! 'nothing can realistically contain it'
If they can capture the electromagnetic energy directly, it will be highly efficient.
What are you going to say when they do get it working?
Where did you get your physics degree?
Being contained in a magnetic field = "contained" =! 'nothing can realistically contain it'
If they can capture the electromagnetic energy directly, it will be highly efficient.
If they've ruled out theories and solved some of the engineering of various phases, that puts humanity closer to figuring out a way to do it.
Me too. A candu plant none the less so we have plenty of tritium. It's certainly a significant health hazard if not properly managed. We've also been managing it just fine for decades. Handling tritium is completely doable and in fact is not that difficult.
So....I don't see how this is a problem if handled responsibly? That goes for the entire nuclear industry as a whole.
Also work in a candu plant. My only point is fusion is heralded as the "clean" nuclear. If we're working with tritium to get it done, this isn't better. Tritium is not safe.
DukenukemX
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Germany's expensive electricity has to do with taxes and not so much the power itself. The businesses there like steal production pay nothing and so the burden is put onto the people. Nuclear isn't cheap because it takes 15 years to build one and you need a lot of security. Right now in America people are going around and shooting up power junctions and killing power for many towns. Imagine what these idiots could do with a nuclear power plant. So you need expensive security.
Of course fusion isn't entirely a 'clean' energy source. That's media BS. It'll just be far better than what we have now with fission (hopefully).
If you really do work at a candu plant you understand how it can be managed. You'd also know that we get some of the highest tritium dose in the world as workers. You'd also know that it hasn't amounted to anything - ever.
Contain the tritium and it's not a problem. Since this is all research and new tech, I will certainly concede that it remains to be seen how well it can be contained given that little is known how we would use it in fusion applications. That hardly makes it unsafe, merely another engineering challenge.
The biggest problem is getting enough tritium to make this work.
I won't argue this past here, but engineering to minimize risk doesn't mean the risk is safe. Yes I know what we do to control tritium, it's a crazy amount of things. This is because it isn't safe. Hence unsafe.
At this point you might as well argue that all radioisotopes are 100% completely unsafe and find yourself a new job. I'm not saying that to be an ass, I'd hate to work for a company I felt was producing something insanely dangerous.
You'd probably get along well with the CAA.
cjcox
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I won't buy until a safe "USA" brand like, Onn, has one available.
They are, tritium being extra bad because our bodies don't process it out, but retain it.
Back to engineering controls, was your point I think, and correct. Engineering controls only make working with and around dangerous things safe. It doesn't make the dangerous things safe. They are still dangerous.
There is a reason this stuff is kept behind semi rediculous amounts of concrete and steel
This is where I'm quite confused. Is your standpoint that nuclear is too dangerous and we should not be using it? Or it is that tritium is too dangerous an isotope?
It's quite obvious that you would not want to expose yourself to tritium of any sort. I can understand that, I've worked with several people who were afraid of the radiation. However, it seems to me that you'd run from airborne tritium like your life depended on it. Fair enough, I'm not going to question that. But it leads me to two possible conclusions:
1. You're one of the many office workers and have never dealt with it
2. You don't work at a candu plant.
Either way, it doesn't matter. There's only one important thing here: you lack the hands on experience of dealing with. Fair enough, not that many do really.
Yes your body does retain it. I keep track of my dose for this reason. However, it's considered an extremely low level hazard in small amounts because it doesn't stay in your body all that long (only a few weeks) and it's a very low energy beta emitter. Sure it's bad in higher amounts just like anything else.
If I had to pick one I'd be very cautious about it would be iodine 131.
There's also a lot of other things in this world that are highly dangerous but I don't think that means that we shouldn't use them. Many chemicals will kill you right quick if not properly controlled. Take the acids used to make electronics for example. But yet we control that hazard and carry on with life.
So this is where the divide is. If we can properly control the hazard, why not? We've proven over and over again that tiny amounts are not an issue. If your standpoint is that the risk is too great then sure I can respect that. But then it begs the question....why would you do the job you do? I certainly wouldn't.
This is my idle curiosity, please understand that I'm not trying to attack you here.
Simply that requiring lots of tritium to generate fusion power seems to make most of the benefits of fusion power moot. Why not keep on generating nuclear power from uranium and plutonium. Proven designs for breeder reactors have been around for ages.
The reason society dislikes nuclear power is the waste and by-products. Fusion is supposed to fix that, not require a bunch of radioactive hydrogen.
Saying that requiring tritium makes it moot makes sense only from the standpoint of there not being enough and making more isn't so easy. Personally, I'm holding any judgement on fusion until that's solved - if it can be within our lifetimes.
I'm all for breeder reactors and more advanced fission designs. We're nearly there in the form of molten salt SMRs.
Absolutely nowhere was it claimed that fusion would fix the problem of needing isotopes or nuclear waste. That was done by media stupidity. The fact is that the waste would be a tiny fraction of what we're making now and it would be far less hazardous.
So from what I get here is you're against using tritium as a fuel due to the hazards, but you're ok with current fission technology?
Maybe you can see why I'm confused?
Society dislikes nuclear power because most of them are morons and believed the lies and propaganda put out by various organizations over the decades. Nuclear is literally the safest form of mass energy production ever created by man.
cjcox
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Dumping spent material into the ocean works for Russia. You know you can trust them. You get the potential of bigger fish. Tokyo is concerned though.
I'm not actually against any of it. Really just trying to highlight the media stupidity I guess, and then falling into a really stupid argument over actual nothing on the internet.
I'm also struggling a bit that it's "fact" that fusion would create less waste, we don't actually have even a prototype or proof of concept for a fusion generating station. Far from facts at this point.
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Water is a very good shielding media
Tsumi
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In order for fusion to be commercially successful, it would have to produce far less toxic/radioactive waste than fission for the same amount of power generated. So yeah, it's pretty much a given that if we're able to commercialize fusion, it would be far cleaner and safer than fission.
I do agree with the media stupidity completely.
As far as less waste by volume, it comes down to the math and physics. There's no reactivity poisons in the way of using up that fuel, whatever it might be. How much of the fuel they'll be able to use yeah who knows at this point. I'm sure it'll be a lot more than we can now with traditional fission.
The hazard of the waste is pretty easy. To figure out from what we already know. Not too worried about that one. Lighter elements tend to be much shorter lived. Few exceptions of course.
this is not true. Commercial success depends only on cost vs gross. Media has ensured that the public is pro fusion vs conventional nuke, so politically its safe. It doesn't even need to cost less.
The breeding reactor doesn't aim to make useful power, only mixed fuel.
Half the bred fuel will be clean fusing Helium3, the other half dirty Tritium.
What to do with a spray of extra neutrons, maybe breed more Deuterium?
Nothing will be done with Tritium but sell it or sit on it till it decays to He3.
If we can make time to age Whiskey, then we can certainly age Tritium.
After an inert Helium3 bubbles out, there is no path backwards to Tritium.
The clean reactor that makes power will fuse He3 to He3 without neutrons.
Fusing He3 to Deuterium to make both fuel and power is a temporary hack.
Nobody expects that hack to be clean, only to demonstrate that it works.
Half the bred fuel will be clean fusing Helium3, the other half dirty Tritium.
What to do with a spray of extra neutrons, maybe breed more Deuterium?
Nothing will be done with Tritium but sell it or sit on it till it decays to He3.
If we can make time to age Whiskey, then we can certainly age Tritium.
After an inert Helium3 bubbles out, there is no path backwards to Tritium.
The clean reactor that makes power will fuse He3 to He3 without neutrons.
Fusing He3 to Deuterium to make both fuel and power is a temporary hack.
Nobody expects that hack to be clean, only to demonstrate that it works.
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cjcox
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Not talking France, talking good ole "friendly" Russia.... Tokyo is still concerned.
Russia wouldn't steer us wrong.
drutman
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Greta is a joke she has zero scientific training.
cjcox
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Notes that Jimmy F. wasn't included (made my day).
Tsumi
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And all it takes is a few high profile accidents to quickly turn the opinion the other way. If that doesn't happen, fusion will be considered safer because the track record shows it is safer. Nuclear fission was the greatest thing since sliced bread until the accidents happened.
Then again, the public is far more concerned about high profile but low likelihood events (i.e. plane accidents) than they are about low profile common events (i.e. car accidents). Doesn't matter which is statistically safer/better.
Although I agree, all of our accidents with nuclear fission that are considered high profile are meltdowns or large releases of contamination. Fusion isn't capable of either. Meltdown is just not possible and release of any significant radioactivity isn't an option either since there's no heavy elements.
Not saying that release of radiation isn't possible - it certainly is. It would also be far smaller on order of magnitudes. There's just not enough fuel with fusion in comparison to fission and what there is isn't so much long lived or nasty like some of the heavier elements.
With any luck we will be smart enough to still build a containment structure. Guess time will tell.
A significant release of tritiated water finding it's way into a drinking water source would be bad.
Of course it would. That's also not a plausible scenario for fusion using tritium. It would not be possible to use tritiated water. They would need to use pure tritium, likely in a gaseous state just like hydrogen.
So assuming we decide to extract pure tritium from tritiated water, that's the only way such a release could happen. Also unlikely as the process uses cryogenics, not water from the environment for cooling. We've also been doing that for quite a few years now so kind of a moot point since it already exists.
DukenukemX
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It's very easy to see why society doesn't want nuclear, because of all the accidents that has occurred. Look at Chernobyl where to this day I have family in Europe that gets cancer and wonder if it's from Chernobyl. Nobody knows for certain, but it's very much in their head. Even Fukushima the most recent nuclear disaster released tons of contaminated water into the ocean. The thing about nuclear is that it's safe in theory, but not in practice. It's safe so long as nothing goes wrong, but we live in a capitalist society where not spending money on precautions is more the norm and really good for investors. Also unlike other forms of energy, if something were to go wrong then the area around the plant can be uninhabitable for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. So of course nuclear power needs a lot of security because again if something were to go wrong, it goes really wrong, and a perfect target for terrorists. For what in the end is nuclear waste that needs security for hundreds of years so that it doesn't contaminate the environment. Cause if there's something humans are good at is security something for that long without any issues.
I guess you're completely ignoring the many decades of nuclear plants putting out tons of electricity and not a single one of them have problems.
Your post is the perfect example of what I was talking about. Propaganda and misinformation being eaten up as if it's fact. Chernobyl is the only "disaster" that can be pointed to as something truly bad which happened and it was an extremely early design and was basically forced to fail. Even the most basic precautions would have stopped that from happening. Fukushima was the dumbest planning possible and likely done because of the NIMBYs. The only problem with Fukushima was the location.
Nuclear is safe in theory and practice. It has been used for decades and any health issues from it are far lower than any other type of main line power generation. Coal plants put out more radiation than nuclear.
Don't even start up on the terrorist crap. Not only has it never happened its also never likely to happen. There's practically no way for terrorists to use anything from a nuke plant.
As for nuclear waste, there's no reason to be storing it for hundreds of years. The stupidity of laws which ban reprocessing of fuel is the cause of needing to store it. There are literal tons of "nuclear waste" which can be easily reprocessed into usable fuel. The ban on reprocessing is yet another one of the tools to demonize and hamstring the use of nuclear power.
It needs to be repeated. Nuclear is the safest and best form of man made mass electrical production in history. It is hoped that eventually fusion takes that spot but there is quite a bit of time yet before that can happen.
Tsumi
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Yup. We've got two choices for things we can build right now: nuclear, or wind/solar/hydro + massive batteries. If we go the fast nuclear reactor route, we can use up all our long lasting nuclear "waste" into stuff that only lasts decades for the really radioactive crap. If we go the so-called eco route, that means massive mining for materials to produce batteries and land use for solar and wind. No perfect solution out there, and the best solution really should be one that combines both in a way that minimizes the negative aspects of each other.
You are right - it is very much in their head. Even a worst case estimate, if you calculate the amount of deaths from nuclear generation over the years, pales in comparison to the amount caused by fossil fuel pollutants, which kill >110,000 globally every year.
By using solar/wind that cost 6x/3x more money than nuclear/oil/coal/hydro, respectively, how many lives could have been saved from hunger by using less expensive nuclear technology? Trillions of dollars wasted that could have gone to feeding the homeless.
There is really no logical argument for solar / wind, except for a few use cases, until private companies manage to improve the efficiency.
Exactly. Let's invest our money in technologies that are capable of powering our future and propelling our spaceships using clean, cost effective techology.
Not to worry, any loose trillions will find other pockets.