# Nuclear-fusion power plants **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Tags:** science-math\ **Created:** [February 20, 2021, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368 "2021-02-20T22:58:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2023, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/61 "2023-05-12T12:54:43Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > The posts you responded to were about Helion and their claims. There are many reasons to be skeptical of their claims. But steam loops and thorium aren’t on that list. I was addressing your general claim that: > [@Ruken](#): > > The news just last month was that NRC has decided to _not_ regulate fusion like fission. For now. But I don’t know the details of what they did settle on. But of course you broke my post into sentence fragments in your response to remove context specifically to manufacture an accusation of “fear-mongering” instead of addressing the actual point that a fusion power system would still necessitate some significant degree of regulation and oversight. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2023, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/62 "2023-05-12T13:23:12Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > But of course you broke my post into sentence fragments in your response to remove context specifically to manufacture an accusation of “fear-mongering” instead of addressing the actual point that a fusion power system would still necessitate some significant degree of regulation and oversight. Then which company is trying to commercialize a fusion system where thorium is at all relevant? Not Helion. Nor Zap, General Fusion, TAE, Commonwealth. I don’t know what the Germans are up to, so maybe it’s Marvel? Otherwise there is no reason to bring it up. Yes, fusion, like many other technologies in wide use uses _and produces_ regulated materials. And NRC will continue to regulate those materials. They will not, however, require the 10k+ page proposals they get from fission companies. Because the hazards are low, understood, and in line with what they’re already regulating. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2023, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/63 "2023-05-12T14:21:11Z")
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**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2023, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/64 "2023-05-12T14:34:32Z")
Trying to sort out this mess. Lots of flags. It will be a while. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2023, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/65 "2023-05-12T15:06:17Z")
**Warning** for [Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train), the “disingenuous asshole” line is over the line. This is insulting a poster outside of the Pit. Please remember what forum you’re posting in. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > They’re not “irrelevant source materials” depending on why kind of system is being used, and next time you baselessly accuse me of “fear-mongering” we’ll have a different kind of discussion about what a disingenuous asshole you are. * * * * * * * * * **Modnote** : @Ruken: the “fear-mongering” line is also attacking the poster and not the post. > [@Ruken](#): > > Bringing up irrelevant source materials constitutes fear-mongering. They’ll need a license for their tritium inventory. There’s already a framework for byproduct materials. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2023, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/66 "2023-05-12T15:06:23Z")
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**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2023, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/67 "2023-05-15T20:35:36Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > The news just last month was that NRC has decided to _not_ regulate fusion like fission. For now. But I don’t know the details of what they did settle on. The Department of Agriculture doesn’t regulate the care and feeding of unicorns either. There’s probably similar reasoning involved. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2023, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/68 "2023-05-15T22:35:48Z")
I think in a world where we regulate hair stylists, what the NRC meant was that no fusion power businesses should simply assume the usual fission regulations will apply. So start your negotiation process with NRC early and often so we can concoct our regs and you can concoct your gizmo so they have some hope of co-existing. FAA & similar authorities in other countries are in a similar dance/negotiation right now with the Urban Air Mobility business community. They can’t be regulated like airplanes and helicopters, not as to design, construction, maintenance, nor operations. Treating them as either of the flavors of traditional aircraft obviously won’t work; these are a whole new breed of air machine and air transport business. But since nobody exactly knows what these machines will be and the state of the art is a very moving target, the Feds struggle to write prescriptive regs that are beneficial and investors don’t want to fund designs that won’t fit the regs that have yet to be written. Like it or not, engineering of the law, the regulations, and the regulators, is as much a part of introducing a new product or technology in the 21st century as is engineering of the product, its manufacturing systems, its supporting infrastructure, its marketing, and its business & financing arrangements. Fusion certainly won’t be _un_regulated. It’ll be novel-ly-regulated. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2023, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/69 "2023-05-15T23:54:45Z")
Fusion will be regulated because fusion reactions currently being tried will irradiate the machinery around them and make it radioactive. There is still nuclear waste with fusion plants. Just not high level waste. As for air taxis, that will be an interesting case. By the logic of the FAA, they should probably be one of the most heavily regulated things around. They fly almost exclusively over built-up areas, they will be in commercial operation with paying passengers, and they will fly at low altitudes. That’s a very challenging environment. The first time one of those things comes down on a house or other building and kills people, the howling from the public will be loud. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2023, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/70 "2023-05-16T00:14:14Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > The Department of Agriculture doesn’t regulate the care and feeding of unicorns either. There’s probably similar reasoning involved. The city of Los Angeles, however, [does license unicorn ownership](https://animalcare.lacounty.gov/unicorns-and-magic-wishes/). But yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Until we get a lot closer to building practical fusion systems, nobody can even tell what sorts of regulations would even make sense, much less be necessary or appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2023, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/71 "2023-05-16T00:53:40Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I don’t see any reason to believe this is actual fraud; they are working on fusion technologies and have had independent audits of their progress by outside reviewers (presumably subject matter experts in the field although I don’t have any details). Frankly, I give Helion much higher odds than any ITER-derived ones. Not because I think they have great odds of success: I wouldn’t put more than 10% on Helion. But rather because I think ITER-derived reactors have basically _negligible_ odds of producing viable reactors. ITER will not generate net electricity. The one after that, DEMO, will–in principle–generate net electricity but still not be a viable, economic design. It is just barely possible that the one after that will be a viable design, but even then it will be a first-generation design. It will probably take until the one _after that_ to really have something cost-optimized to be useful. That is not 10-20 years off. It’s probably a century off. But in a century, fusion will be obsolete, because renewables will have continued going down in cost, and the storage problem will be basically solved (using a variety of techniques, from batteries to hydrogen). So there will never be a point to actually building these reactors, even if they actually work–which remains to be proven. So the only chance of fusion actually succeeding is if one of these long-shot methods pulls it off. Helion will almost certainly fail, but the odds aren’t zero, and if they succeed they might have a viable reactor before other changes make fusion obsolete. If fusion power happens at all, it will have to happen soon, and that is impossible with these massive, international, multi-hundred-billion dollar efforts. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2023, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/72 "2023-05-16T01:22:21Z")
Not much confidence in space exploration, @Dr.Strangelove ? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2023, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/73 "2023-05-16T01:27:46Z")
I almost mentioned that fusion would be useful for _literal starships_, but felt that was getting a bit beyond the scope of the post… (ok, also useful for exploration in the outer reaches of the solar system, but for Mars inward, solar is where it’s at) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2023, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/74 "2023-05-16T02:17:28Z")
Solar might be where it’s at for powering small probes, but for large probes, rovers, helicopters or manned missions, nuclear thermal or nuclear ion using fission reactors is where the action is going to be. We’re not likely to get fusion propulsion for the same reason we are unlikely to get fusion power, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2023, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/75 "2023-05-16T10:16:06Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > The Department of Agriculture doesn’t regulate the care and feeding of unicorns either. There’s probably similar reasoning involved. Given that the announcement was about how and not if they’d be regulated, and that there are already fusion devices operating right now, and that NRC does already regulate their materials, there probably isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2023, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/76 "2023-05-29T12:33:32Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > especially if it requires the breading of tritium I love me some breaded tritium, but my doctor told me I should stay away from deep-fried isotopes. So I tried putting the tritium in my air fryer, and I’m pretty sure I got an over-unity reaction, based on the smoldering ruins of my house. But I’ve decided not to write this up for publication, because the result tasted terrible. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2023, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/77 "2023-06-16T03:08:53Z")
Bad news concerning ITER: > **[World’s Largest Fusion Project Is in Big Trouble, New Documents Reveal](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worlds-largest-fusion-project-is-in-big-trouble-new-documents-reveal/)** > > The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is already billions of dollars over budget and decades behind schedule. How much more money and time it will take to complete, not even its leaders can say ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2023, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/78 "2023-06-16T04:07:15Z")
_Shocking_ that EU bureaucracy, renowned for their efficiency, cannot keep costs or deadlines under control. What’s next, Arianespace losing their leadership in commercial space? Perish the thought. There’s a very serious problem with these multi-decade projects: even without the delays, they bake in technologies from when they were first designed. For example, the superconductors used in ITER are essentially obsolete, since the decisions were made in the early 90s. Advances in superconducting wire mean the state of the art is something like twice as good as what they’re using. Which is _huge_ for fusion since the scaling law for power is roughly field strength to the _fourth_ power. Not to mention cost reductions and other things. Unless you can prove that your project is not dependent on any rapidly advancing technologies (superconductors, computers, whatever), you should not undertake huge, multi-decade projects. Do low-level research until the underlying tech catches up. I’m not sure there’s any value at all to ITER at this point. And not just because of the magnets. Recent advances in machine learning (unimaginable in the 90s) may solve the plasma stability problem. Or at least help design a more practical reactor. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2023, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/79 "2023-06-18T17:19:37Z")
The world supply of tritium is 25 kg. > **[Fusion power may run out of fuel before it even gets started](https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-power-may-run-fuel-even-gets-started)** > > Experts fear giant ITER reactor will worsen looming shortage of tritium ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2023, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368/80 "2023-06-18T18:39:02Z")
Despite being true that’s a bit disingenuous. Tritium must be continuously replaced due to decay. And the main consumer of tritium is boosted fusion weapons. So the national production capacity is sized to meet DOE’s demand to refresh the nukes. Other countries are similar. If tritium was needed in industrial quantities it could be produced in industrial quantities. ITER overall is probably (IMO) a dead-end boondoggle. But lack of tritium is not the long pole in that tent; not even close. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-fusion-power-plants/933368.md?page=5)