In this space, visitors are invited to post any comments, questions, or skeptical observations about Philo T. Farnsworth's contributions to the field of Nuclear Fusion research.Subject: Re: Tritium production and measurement
Date: Jul 20, 12:53 pm
Poster: Clay CodnerOn Jul 20, 12:53 pm, Clay Codner wrote:
>I don't have it in front of me, but several curies of T is less than $100. T is about 9600 Curies/g, so figure something like $100,000/g.
>
>Doing a quick calculation on the economics of fusion power is instructive... 1000 MWh is 2.25E31 eV, dividing by 14 MeV/T, you'll need about 2.65mol, or 8 grams, probably a cool half million in that quantity. 1000 MWh of electricity sells for around $100,000....(at $0.10/kWh)... Hmmmmmm doesn't look too profitable, does it..
*************************************************
Not only that, but 1000MWh in a VERY efficient power plant produces 500MWe (MWh = heat, MWe = electricity), which really doesn't help the economics.
I'm not sure what you mean by "you don;t use much tritium". In a D-T reaction, you are using 50%D and 50%T to get those He products out. If you start from D-D, I would think you could get up to an equilibrium concentration of at least 20-30% Tritium (assume pulling out the reaction products to keep a stable vacuum).
Tritium should drop in price rapidly if a commercial reactor ever happens, so the economics will change, but I think that with reaction rates of 10^20-10^50 you could bring yourself up to a stable Tritium level within 2-3 days.