Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

When operational a fusion reactor has less then a couple grams of fuel in the vacuum vessel.


Okay, let's do some back of the napkin calculation.

The specific heat of Hydrogen gas is roughly 20 J/gC at high temperatures[1]. It would be much higher for a plasma but I couldn't easily find a number.

At 100M degrees C, a single gram of hydrogen would have over 2 Gigajoules of thermal energy. 2 grams of hydrogen would have the same energy as a literal ton of TNT.

It's not untenable, but its not really something that should be brushed off as "its only a couple grams of fuel" or "it can't have a runaway reaction".

[1] https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/hydrogen-d_976.html


Having energy does not demonstrate danger to life and limb. 2 tons of fat have more energy than 2 tons of TnT. Obviously it does not release energy in the same way.

That plasma is at less than atmospheric pressure, and is contained in a massive steel vessel. Even if it expands and melts through the vessel, the atmospheric pressure will collapse it. I do not see a plausible scenario where anyone is in jured.


Funnily enough the much bigger danger is magnet quenches. Thousands of amps boiling off a couple dozen tons of liquid whatever is going to be a hell of a danger, but it's still "violent industrial accident" and not "fireworks factory" - and definitely nothing which people think of when you say "nuclear".




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: