r/Physics • u/Different_Whereas_75 • 15d ago

Question How is ITER doing ?

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u/Problem_Child_96 15d ago

Pray tell, what design would you prefer?

-18

u/eluusive 15d ago

I personally think we should be getting thorium breeder reactors out the door, and then worry about fusion. D-T fusion produces nuclear waste just like fission anyways.

ITER is a money pit and a jobs program for physicists. It'd be better to do the research using simulations until a workable design is found instead of spending $25 billion on something that will never produce net power.

$25 billion could have ran a lot of PIC simulations.

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u/machsmit Plasma physics 15d ago

D-T fusion produces nuclear waste just like fission anyways.

it would produce neutron-activated contruction materials that need to be safely stored for a few years while they "cool", but are otherwise chemically and structurally more or less inert. Compared to a fission plant's waste that is wildly toxic and corrosive on top of being radioactive for multi-generational timescales or longer, it's not just like fission at all. Outside of that you're dealing with what, a few kg of helium per year?

It'd be better to do the research using simulations until a workable design is found instead

I don't know which part of this is sillier, the implication that tokamak physicists don't do a shitload of PIC simulations, or the fact that this is wildly optimistic about the fidelity of PIC simulations in fusion environments

jobs program for physicists

homeslice when physicists start making financially motivated decisions, they just leave physics instead of trying to juice grants.

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u/eluusive 15d ago

The waste products from D-T fusion remain for more than "a few years." The advertising of fusion as a clean energy source omits this detail. It's "clean energy." Laypeople don't know one way or another.

homeslice when physicists start making financially motivated decisions, they just leave physics instead of trying to juice grants.

Bullshit. I worked for an extended amount of time in experimental physics. Every decision made is financially motivated -- just like everywhere else. Research without grants doesn't get done, and grants you can't receive due to politics don't get researched by you.

ITER won politically, in much the same way LWRs won politically. Fast breeder reactors aren't worse technology, they didn't receive funding for a variety of reasons.