China plans world’s first fusion-fission power plant

[kodama]

TL;DR Summary

first fusion-fission power plant

what do you think of China plans world’s first fusion-fission power plant
and first fusion-fission power plant with q 30

why'd fusion-fission power plant over fast reactor

https://www.neimagazine.com/news/china-plans-worlds-first-fusion-fission-power-plant/

if it succeeds should USA and Europe explores fusion-fission power

fusion for neutrons to fission uranium enrichment program and thorium

q 30

100 megawatts for $2 billion

could nuclear engineers comment on China plans world’s first fusion-fission power plant

no meltdown like in fast reactor and less waste

maybe politics its more acceptance confidence

should USA build fusion-fission power

 

[QuarkyMeson]

The US explored this idea back in the 50's and 60's and determined it wasn't worth it over just a fission reactor. Nothings changed there. The only use case where something like this might be worth it would be for spent fuel disposal.

The US should build more fission reactors, they're very safe already.

 

[kodama]

so why is China building one

 

[QuarkyMeson]

Probably for the same reasons we have the national ignition facility in the US.

 

[kodama]

fusion-fission reactors may be more important role for acceptance by the public sector only fission reactors are not being made Germany ban

 

[BWV]

100 megawatts for $2 billion is ~20x the cost of combined cycle gas or solar

 

[kodama]

is

100 megawatts for $2 billion is ~20x the cost of combined cycle gas or solar

gas is co2 emissions

its world’s first costs may go down if thousands more are built

 

[QuarkyMeson]

fusion-fission reactors may be more important role for acceptance by the public sector only fission reactors are not being made Germany ban

Why's that? They still result in long lived (on human timescales) waste.

Meltdown fears are completely overblown with modern reactor design. The number of deaths from fission including indirect deaths isn't even in the same realm as compared to other major sources like coal and gas.

https://earth.org/nuclear-which-is-the-safest-energy-source/#:~:text=The direct death toll of,to the strain of evacuations.

This doesn't need a less effcient reactor design to make people accept it. There's a large gap in education on nuclear power in general.

 

[kodama]

so why it's China creating a fusion-fission reactors by '30?

 

[QuarkyMeson]

so why it's China creating a fusion-fission reactors by '30?

Probably for the same reasons we have the national ignition facility in the US.

Aka nuclear weapon development and testing.

 

[BWV]

is


gas is co2 emissions

So spend an extra $100M to plant some trees, still will be $1.8B ahead

 

[kodama]

So spend an extra $100M to plant some trees, still will be $1.8B ahead

fusion-fission reactors may be a new course before fusion reactors

 

[Rive]

so why is China building one

China has a really ambitious nuclear power program rolling. What means, soon they'll have a really big (problematic) stock of DU and nuclear waste. In theory, both can be burned in a fusion-fission reactor.
100MW is not really a big one. Sounds more like an oversized (optimistic) demonstrator.

 

[kodama]

so could a nuclear engineers with phd comment on the fusion China plans world’s first fusion-fission power plant

is it lasers or magnetic field and is q=30 realize

 

[kodama]

So spend an extra $100M to plant some trees, still will be $1.8B ahead

the worlds very first hybrid reactor will be extremely expensive to build



if succeeds building new hybrid reactor by the tens of thousands all over the world should go down in costs - I don't know if China will involve USA and European countries building new hybrid reactor blue prints

pure viable fusion reactor that produce more energy than consumes seems to be 100 years away and may be impossible to build

many nations banned building new fission nuclear reactor like Germany may allow hybrid reactor

hybrid reactor could also use thorium and spent nuclear waste

 

[Rive]

hybrid reactor could also use thorium

Just for the log: practically every (!) light water reactor in use would be able to run on mixed-thorium fuel.

 

[kodama]

Just for the log: practically every (!) light water reactor in use would be able to run on mixed-thorium fuel.

why don't they ?

 

[Rive]

No need, currently. U-fuel is actually cheap, but keeping more infrastructure running for more type of fuel (and waste) is not.

And, it's a lot of paperwork.

Ps.: even classic (Pu) MOX is struggling.

 

[kodama]

what about costs of disposal of highly hazardous long lived radioactive waste?

 

[PeterDonis]

what about costs of disposal of highly hazardous long lived radioactive waste?

You don't dispose of it, you reprocess it. That's what every nuclear-using country except the US has done. How to do that is well understood, and I would be very surprised if the Chinese don't handle the issue that way.

 

[QuarkyMeson]

You don't dispose of it, you reprocess it. That's what every nuclear-using country except the US has done. How to do that is well understood, and I would be very surprised if the Chinese don't handle the issue that way.

Even with recycling you'd still need underground storage at some point though right? This is the same with a fusion|fission hybrid reactor too. Eventually you're going to have long lived nuclear products that just aren't useful for anything anymore.

The US policy of not reusing spent fuel enacted by Carter was on its face worried about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. That fear was/is overblown. The main/real? reason was that nuclear fuel was cheap and it was cheaper to bury spent fuel then try to reclaim it. That's still generally the case right? Especially in a larger country like the US were we have natural formations suited towards long term storage.

 

[kodama]

You don't dispose of it, you reprocess it. That's what every nuclear-using country except the US has done. How to do that is well understood, and I would be very surprised if the Chinese don't handle the issue that way.

Fast-neutron reactor are generation 4 and still under way

 

[PeterDonis]

Even with recycling you'd still need underground storage at some point though right?

Not necessarily, no. There is still some waste you need to store, but you only need to store it for a much shorter period of time, on the order of a century instead of on the order of 100 centuries. Underground storage was proposed on the assumption that the latter, longer time scale would be required. With reprocessing, it's not.

The US policy of not reusing spent fuel enacted by Carter was on its face worried about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. That fear was/is overblown.

Yes, agreed. And we now have many decades of data from other countries that demonstrates this.

The main/real? reason was that nuclear fuel was cheap and it was cheaper to bury spent fuel then try to reclaim it. That's still generally the case right?

It might still be the case now, but it's not likely to be the case for very much longer. Certainly it won't be the case on a time scale of 100 centuries, the kind of time scale that was driving the requirement for underground storage. You'll be wanting to reprocess that spent fuel long before that even if you don't do it right away.

 

[kodama]

Not necessarily, no. There is still some waste you need to store, but you only need to store it for a much shorter period of time, on the order of a century instead of on the order of 100 centuries. Underground storage was proposed on the assumption that the latter, longer time scale would be required. With reprocessing, it's not.


Yes, agreed. And we now have many decades of data from other countries that demonstrates this.


It might still be the case now, but it's not likely to be the case for very much longer. Certainly it won't be the case on a time scale of 100 centuries, the kind of time scale that was driving the requirement for underground storage. You'll be wanting to reprocess that spent fuel long before that even if you don't do it right away.

fusion-fission reactor could reprocess that spent fuel as it creates Fast-neutron