[ExI] Fusion breakthrough

[spike at rainier66.com]

...> On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat


>...What nuclear waste is there in laser-primed fusion of deuterium fuel
pellets?...
Stuart LaForge


_______________________________________________


Stuart, the deetz are hard to come by on that fusion event from Lawrence
Livermore but from what I have been able to glean from various sources, this
experiment fused tritium with deuterium.  That reaction produces a neutron
(14 MeV) and radiation with energy about 3.5 MeV.  It wasn't entirely clear,
but it sounds like this experiment only tried to recover the radiation
energy and didn't do anything with the energy in that hot neutron.

In any case, that neutron would be absorbed by the containment vessel, which
becomes radioactive over time as a result.  This is a bad thing, for that
means the containment vessel is weakened over time as well.  There have been
a number of schemes proposed to recover the energy in that neutron, but I
have not heard any of them have worked out.

spike