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I agree - always been a bit mystified when fusion power is described as "cheap", fuel isn't a big component of the cost of fission power plants so even if the fuel is low cost it won't save you that much money.

[I guess decommissioning costs might be lower but are they actually included in the costs of operating normal nuclear plants?]




I bet regulatory compliance is a big chunk of the costs. Those regulations are bound to be much more strict for a fission plant that can potentially blow up and contaminate a large area compared to a fusion plant with a safe failure mode by default (the plasma just shuts down).


The worst case scenarios for an accident at a fusion plant aren't nearly as bad as those at a fission plant so you should be able to get by with somewhat less in terms of paranoid safety measures and overbuilding.


Aren't large part of that actually the waste disposal costs? With Fusion you in theory, avoid radioactive waste.




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