Fusion via D-T reactions (the easiest known to man to be able to implement) are real nasty in that everything in the reactor vessel will be hot. This is solely due to the neutrons from the reaction activating all the materials within the fusion chamber. D-D, which is the second easiest to do and the one we are involved with as amateurs, would be equally dirty in a full power station scenario.
Any parts removed during maintenance sessions will be lethally radioactive. Likewise, the gas fill from a shut down fusion reactor would be loaded with radioactives such as tritium and other RAD laden gases.
Happily, a fusion reactor, in theory, can't run away and if an overpressure occured or a vessel rupture, the reaction would cease immediately. Only the RAD internal gas load would escape to the environment. If in a containment vessel, then even this would be trapped.
It is tough to do nuclear things without activating something! Even the wonderful and ostensibly neutron free P-B11 reaction has problems three or four steps down the chain in its process and would, itself, create some rad stuff in and around the vessel. We need to get the D-T going good before the P-B11 will begin to go.
Fission power and breeders actually create bulk waste just like we humans do, which has to be buried or hauled off. Our stuff is bio-degradable, but the fission products are not and can pose a long term (hundred thousand year) biohazard. It must be stated that the hottest of this nuclear fission waste consists of rather short lived isotopes. Fusion would also create relatively short lived isotopes. (months to years)
Most fission reactor waste degrades fast from ultra lethal, to lethal, to nasty, to bad for you in a few years. In 30-50 years it is much more managable and can often be handled with minimal protection. Only spent fuel or breeder materials remain hot for vast epochs.
The horror of the RAD waste issue is the risk of getting even the weak stuff into the food chain/water supply. Internally, very weak and minute RAD sources lodge in bone and other tissue and can lead to cancers and birth defects via genetic mutations.
In our quest for future power, some of the knee-jerk ractions to anything nuclear may have to yield to modrate reclassification and some sort of symbiosis with our nuclear power partner will have to be arrived at inorder to keep the power rolling through the lines.
The recent rolling power outages in CA. and the Pacific Northwest now are partially due to a form of radical environmentalism. Greenpeace, environazis and other militant chicken littles who, though often meaning well, have fought tooth and nail not so much against nuclear power, which is their equivalent to the devil, but also against the construction of any fossil fuel based new power facilities, as well, have limited power production growth in the area. California has been buying electricity for years ( a net power importer).
The Snail darters, salmon, and or other living things of the earth have been used as the clarion call of the wild to stop, slow or impede any large, power facility. California is especially hard hit in this area.
To buy a log cabin, live off the land, and become one with nature sounds nice and a few folks are doing it, but the world at its present pace and direction is heading doggedly to ever vaster and more voracious power requiements. This is the future. We need power. Reduced power consumption in many devices is not balancing the sheer number of new devices which people think they must have, coming on the market. Thus, we see a net increase in power demands.
We will be dealing with RAD waste issues in the future whether making wise decisions or not.
Fusion power would be great if it can come on line in time. I have grave doubts about it though. Observing nature and seeing man's efforts as regards fusion leaves me in despair over our chances of affecting a timely taming of the fusion genie.
The whole deal is not science it is politics and money. Science is the promise (faith). Politics is the reality (fathers and dogma of the church). Money the prime mover (power and influence over the masses). Little has changed since the dark ages, just the players and the type of controling religion.
Richard Hull
Created on Tuesday, March 20, 2001 2:26 PM EDT by Richard Hull