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Asked by head520faro on 20 Dec 2024.
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Caroline Roche answered on 20 Dec 2024:
Yes, if the technology allows I could see them retro-fitting the existing fission reactors with fusion ones.
Initially, I would expect them to be larger until they have been fully developed and then made more compact. The current PWR (Pressurised Water Reactor) design, which is the type being installed in Hinkley Point C, is about 3.5m high, 3m in diameter. While the ITER fusion reactor in development in France will be around 30m high with a 12m diameter.
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Tina-Jaine Haigh answered on 24 Jan 2025: last edited 24 Jan 2025 13:33
A nuclear reactor can’t switch from fission to fusion. They are designed to do 1 thing. So our existing fission power stations will carry on doing fission. But I am hopeful that we will eventually start building fusion power stations. The science is developing very well through big experiments like ITER. The engineering has some catching up to do, and there are lots of aspects yet to figure out to turn a reactor (just the container where the reaction happens) into a power station where you can get all the energy out of the reactor and turn it into electricity.
One part no-one has figured out is what kind of material could you transfer all that heat to without it just vaporising. In a fission reactor, the rector core has either water or gas flowing through it. That water or gas is there to soak up the heat the reaction makes, and physically move the energy to somewhere it can be used to turn a turbine to generate electricity. In fusion reactors, the designs so far have made a lot of effort trying to stop the hot plasma from touching the walls of the reactor vessel, because it would damage the vessel, or stop the reaction. But to get the heat energy out and use it, it will probably have to touch something. The experiments so far don’t have a good solution to that. So if you’d like to help build fusion power stations, consider materials science!
Comments
Steve P commented on :
For 70 years, research has been progressing into nuclear fusion technology. The physics isn’t the problem (in that we know how fusion works), but the technology and investment is still needed to contain a sustainable fusion reaction that is both large scale and economic. The ITER (the largest fusion reactor on Earth) aims further scientific research, and provide technological demonstration of large scale fusion in less than 10 years’ time.
The energy economy of the world keeps changing, and although there has already been a huge shift to renewables (which are largelyvariable in their output), there will always (assuming we can’t develop ‘perfect’ batteries to store energy) be a need for a steady, predictable ‘base load’ of power generation: fusion is a very strong candidate for this role.