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by xyzzyz
2085 days ago
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You don't need as much containment as you do for fission, because you don't deal similarly large amounts of highly radioactive isotopes. Consequently, the safety standards required are closer to fossil plants than to nuclear plants, and these safety standards are really what drives the cost of nuclear fission. The steam/electricity conversion/transmission/cooling" are also present in fossil plants, and these are significantly cheaper than fission plants. |
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Fission’s primary form of shielding is generally large pools of water or other coolant which don’t directly become radioactive. Fusion on the other hand needs to maintain a near vacuum so your pressure vessel is under heavy neutron bombardment. However, small amounts of radioactive materials get dissolved in the fission’s water which the goes on to contaminate the primary coolant loop which increased decommissioning costs. Fusion reactors primarily containment vessels becomes extremely radioactive and all the remote handling equipment also needs decontamination, but it’s unclear if the primary coolant loop will need similar types of decontamination.
And by small amounts, divers occasionally go in the same pools storing years of spent fuel rods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_fuel_pool
Running the numbers the real difference is fission reactors need more protection from the outside world and containment for a potential meltdown. Thus thick though still fairly cheap walls, which generally don’t become radioactive. They last for 50 years and don’t actually cost that much to construct. Fusion however is a vastly more complex device which will also increase construction and decommissioning costs.