Focus Fusion vs. Nuclear Reactors
Q:What's the big difference between Focus Fusion reactors and current nuclear reactors?
A:
In current nuclear reactors, energy is produced through nuclear fission. Here, a neutron breaks apart a uranium nucleus releasing energy and more high-energy neutrons. The nuclear fragments produced are highly radioactive. They naturally decay and give off their own energetic radiation. In addition, the neutrons smash into the nuclei of atoms in the reactor structure transmuting them to radioactive nuclei as well. All of these radioactive atoms constitute nuclear waste.
The form of nuclear fusion that the US government has funded, which uses deuterium and tritium as fuel, also produces some radioactive waste although far less than fission. Tritium, a form of hydrogen with two additional neutrons, is itself radioactive. When deuterium and tritium nuclei fuse together they produce nuclei of harmless and non-radioactive helium and a neutron. But the high energy neutron that carries most of the energy of the reaction can again smash into the reactor’s structure making it radioactive.
In focus fusion, however, none of this occurs. The fuel that will be used consists of hydrogen and boron. Both harmless, non-radioactive substances. When hydrogen nuclei (protons) and boron nuclei fuse together at extremely high temperatures they produce only helium nuclei and no neutrons.
A secondary reaction occurs when some helium nuclei fuse with boron nuclei. This does produce some neutrons. But these reactions are rare and only 1/1000th of the energy is emitted in the form of neutrons. The small number of neutrons emitted could easily be absorbed in a water shield about 1 meter thick, surrounded by 20 cm of Boron-10, which is a widely-used neutron absorber.
Focus fusion reactors are so safe that anyone could safely enter the reactor room seconds after it had been turned off even if it had previously been functioning for a year. (Due to the high-voltage equipment that focus fusion uses, it would not be advisable to be in the room when the reactor is working!) Short-lived radioactivity within the shielded reactor chamber itself would be below background levels in eight or nine hours, allowing the reactor vessel to be safely opened and maintained.
A tiny amount of radioactivity will be produced in the beryllium electrode, but it is so small, that NO radioactive waste (material that is dangerous to people) will be generated. In one year of operation a 5 MW focus-fusion reactor will generate about 5 microcuries (millionths of a curie) of radioactivity, about the same amount of radioactivity as contained in the bodies of a classroom of children. If the entire US electric power generation capacity were focus-fusion generators, 0.6 curies of radioactivity would be produced per year. By comparison, conventional nuclear energy has so far generated nearly one hundred billion curies of radioactive waste.
See also “If it’s nuclear, won’t it be radioactive.” and “Can Focus Fusion be used to make a fusion bomb”