The fusion-fission hybrid will use high-energy neutrons produced by a fusion reaction to trigger fission in surrounding materials thereby boosting energy output and potentially reducing long-lived nuclear waste.
also known as a hydrogen bomb.
OK. Here’s the real question.
Are they sharing that research? I ask because if we can all get our heads out of our asses on energy production that kinda… wipes out a major reason for wars. Oh sure there are lots of OTHER reasons, but getting that off the table of excuses would be nice.
Also using fission materials as a way to shield the fusion reaction is a damned interesting way of getting around the spalling problem of the fusion reaction destroying its containment walls.
I’m pretty sure they aren’t doing the design part of the research. A lot of the “new” designs that China has been testing recently, have been sitting on US and European shelves for decades, like since the late '60s and early '70s. There’s just not really a way, in the West, to legally set up a test reactor. China can just ignore things like permits and zoning.
This is one of the biggest frustrations with nuclear power. The first power plants had issues (mostly due to them being bomb factory designs). We learnt from that, and designed better ones. They never got built. They were swamped in red tape and delays until they died.
Decades later, China comes in and just asks nicely. The designs work fine. China now leads the way, built on research we left to rot.
It’s also worth noting that there is a big difference between a fusion power plant and a fission one. China is doing active research on it, as is the west. There’s quite a friendly rivalry going on. We have also basically cracked fusion now. We just need to scale it up. The only big problem left is the tokamakite issue. The neutron radiation put off by the reaction transmutes the walls. Using radioactive materials as a buffer is an idea I’ve not heard of. I’m curious about the end products. A big selling point of fusion is the lack of long term waste. Putting a fission reaction in there too might lose that benefit.
permits, zoning, human lives, environmental concerns…
Here’s hoping it doesn’t go boom.
They don’t usually go boom so much as ticky ticky ticky on the Geiger counters, maybe a little glow in the night too…
The likelihood of one blowing its top is about as likely as the front of a boat falling off, which I’d like to make clear is very uncommon
Not sure if you’re being sarcastic but boats splitting in half is not uncommon, as far as boat structural failures go it’s a relatively common one.
Stats on such a thing are unavailable but there are many news articles regarding boats splitting in half. I’d hope the safety factor on a fission reactor is several orders of magnitude higher than a seafaring vessel.
https://www.marineinsight.com/videos/why-do-ships-break-from-the-middle/
This… seems… highly theoretical.
It’s… It’s well within limits. Sustaining sequence.
Oh. Oh dear.
I’d like to see a followup story published sometime other than the first of April.
Well you see. Mega projects in authoritarian countries rarely solve actual problem or serve a purpose. They‘re just there to make good headlines and be forgotten because the next mega project or innovation just made the news!
Are we saying things like the three gorges dam, china canals, and rail, are all just for show and don’t serve a purpose?
Partially yes absolutely. Some regions with more and more dams have recently experienced devastating floods, suggesting they‘ve tempered with nature a little too much. And yes, some of those new highspeed rails are barely ever used and mainly serve a symbolic purpose, namely connecting outer regions to the central power in Beijing in some way or form. Nearly nobody uses those and the best case scenario for them would be a war so they can transport masses of troops quickly.
i had no opinion and minimal knowledge about high speed rail in China going into this comment section, but it looks like the outer cities experience real estate growth in the wake of being connected by high speed rail, and reportedly the rail lines are some of the safest in the world. i can’t imagine criticizing a country for building too much high efficiency mass transit in advance
It’s more accurate to say they might be, but not necessarily. China is very aware of the benefits of keeping ahead technologically.
Huh, sounds like a neat twist on the accelerator driven subcritical reactor. I’ve no idea what the viability will be, but it also seems like a nice way to generate useful isotopes for nuclear medicine and shit.
EDIT: ah, it’s actually a pretty old idea, it predates the accelerator reactor concept by quite a bit.
Wait wait wait wait.
Don’t we already do this? Just right now we don’t do it in the same reactor?
Not that I’m aware of. All our nuclear commercial power plants are just plain old nuclear energy boiling water. We’re gonna use a damn Dyson Sphere to boil water…
We have bombs that use a similar starting mechanism, but they aren’t exactly useful energy production.
I meant that we use neutron breeders to turn certain fuel rod waste into fissile plutonium I think.
The difference with the Chinese invention is that you don’t need to transport the waste to a separate breeder.
Isn’t a Dyson Sphere supposed to use solar panels? I don’t know how you would find enough water to cover the interior of an object with the radius of the Earth
In the sense that it does use more of the fuel, like a breeder reactor, that’s good. We need to stop claiming 95% good fuel to be “waste” that needs to be stored for a long time and instead just use it all up.
The other benefit I can think of is keeping the fissile materials always sub critical. You don’t have to worry about a meltdown if the reaction is not self-sustaining. It’s an odd marrying of technologies, but I think people are being too dismissive.
Although, I wonder if the true purpose of such a device would be high output breeding of fuel for weapons use.
So it’s a fission reaction boosted by fusion?
Essentially yes.
Normally, the amount of neutrons generated in a fusion reactor is an issue. Here it is an asset.
This seems like a good step on the way to developing the technology necessary to build a fission plant in the future.
I’m sure China will share a lot of technological innovations as well
Just like the US “shares” its IP
🤡
I don’t imagine the US is going to be contributing much to science in the future.
