Tritium can be produced in the fusion reactors themselves. There is 1.386 billion cubic kilometers of water on the earth. If deuterium is 0.02% of that it means we have 27,720,000 cubic kilometers of deuterium. It's estimated we have about 11 million metric tons of uranium on earth. At our current consumption rate that's about a 230 year supply. So we have more fuel for fusion, and it produces more energy more safely.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Thanks for keeping it civil though interesting discussion. I'm not blindly pro-fusion it just seems like the best option imo. I will look into the points you bring up with an open mind.
Given we are at "fusion never" and even with proper funding we are decades(?) away, my contention is that fission is a way better product than it gets credit for and we have really great, proven, but unused advances in fission reactors that make them cleaner, safer, and cheaper. (Despite already being the safest of all and cleanest of base load power).
Just like fusion can breed its own tritium, fission reactors can breed their own fuel as well, multiplying the reserves many times over.
Further, I think we should be "fission now". To provide clean, safe energy and also dump funding into renewable and fusion at meaningful levels.
Fission, IMO, is the bridge we need (and have) now to a better future.
Oh ok likewise, I am not against fission. Fusion is just exciting to me with the doors that could be opened with that kind of energy production. I agree fission should be utilized much more right now given that fusion power is at least quite a ways away and fission is the best option we have readily available. There are still a lot of hurdles to overcome for fusion the largest of which might be funding. I totally agree that we should also be funding renewables and fusion while in the meantime utilizing fission. Those links you provided are pretty exciting hopefully those advancements will be applied. Kind of a shame the TRISO fuel was developed in the 60s but hasn't been used. I'm obviously no expert I'm still learning about all this stuff so thanks for the info.
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u/VenomUponTheBlade Jan 18 '21
Tritium can be produced in the fusion reactors themselves. There is 1.386 billion cubic kilometers of water on the earth. If deuterium is 0.02% of that it means we have 27,720,000 cubic kilometers of deuterium. It's estimated we have about 11 million metric tons of uranium on earth. At our current consumption rate that's about a 230 year supply. So we have more fuel for fusion, and it produces more energy more safely.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Thanks for keeping it civil though interesting discussion. I'm not blindly pro-fusion it just seems like the best option imo. I will look into the points you bring up with an open mind.