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nemo136 | 11 months ago

Looking at the fact there are currently no active electricity generating fusion power plants, and we do not know which technology will "win", how likely is this a waste of money ? Or am I missing a point ?

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lucozade|11 months ago

Most experimental approaches to fusion use a deuterium-tritium reaction. It's not the only possibility but it's not a wild bet that tritium will be needed whichever fusion tech wins.

And as tritium has a relatively short half life, it makes sense to research ways to generate, recycle and store it.

There's no reason to wait for a self-sustaining reactor to be online before you start to research other technologies that would be needed for a commercially viable setup. There's no obvious reason why this shouldn't be done in parallel.

The value of the basic research aside, it strikes me that it's as least as valuable as any current fusion research.

FriedPickles|11 months ago

The article discusses only the peaceful uses. But tritium must also be constantly replenished in the h-bomb arsenal due to its half life of ~12 years.

WithinReason|11 months ago

You need fuel to conduct experiments