Nuclear fusion vs fission fuel supply1/17/2024 ![]() ![]() ![]() A significant limiting factor for the viability of fusion energy is the continued availability of a rare isotope of hydrogen known as tritium, which is used to fuel fusion reactors. With the recent breakthroughs in fusion technology, researchers and science journalists are confronting the material requirements of a vaporware promise turned hardware reality. The United States and the world should not wait for future geopolitical stability to implement practical strategies at this critical technology nexus. Finally, when the world reverses current proliferation trends and renews disarmament efforts, valuable tritium reserves can be more readily put to productive and peaceful use. Cultivating domestic supply chains for energy production would reduce dependence on autocratic regimes and further strengthen national security. By reducing reliance on dual-use technologies such as centrifuges for uranium enrichment, the transition from fission to fusion energy would also reduce nuclear proliferation risk. Additional low-carbon energy options would support long-term climate change mitigation. The first nations to commercially deploy fusion would be the global leaders and play a significant role in establishing norms. Tritium is both an irreplaceable component in virtually all modern weapon designs and an essential fuel material for nascent nuclear fusion technologies that may one day provide sustainable, low-carbon energy solutions.Ī holistic national tritium strategy leveraging defense production capabilities to support the uncertain and dwindling fusion fuel supplies with reliable defense production would provide many advantages. Presently, defense and commercial tritium supply chains are kept segregated, and only the former is readily scalable. Since tritium cannot be stockpiled due to its relatively short half-life of 12.3 years, it must be continuously produced. Most of the world’s tritium reserves and production capacity are dedicated for use in nuclear weapons, and what remains for peaceful applications is precarious. In nuclear weapons, this process “boosts” the explosive yield of uranium and plutonium by 10-100x, and in experimental reactors, it produces substantial amounts of heat that can be used to generate electricity. This is why fusion is still in the research and development phase – and fission is already making electricity.Nuclear fusion is commonly achieved by fusing together two isotopes of hydrogen, tritium and deuterium, under high pressures and temperatures. The reasons that have made fusion so difficult to achieve to date are the same ones that make it safe: it is a finely balanced reaction which is very sensitive to the conditions – the reaction will die if the plasma is too cold or too hot, or if there is too much fuel or not enough, or too many contaminants, or if the magnetic fields are not set up just right to control the turbulence of the hot plasma. Unlike nuclear fission, the nuclear fusion reaction in a tokamak is an inherently safe reaction. In conventional nuclear power stations today, there are systems in place to moderate the chain reactions to prevent accident scenarios and stringent security measures to deal with proliferation issues. ![]() This chain reaction is the key to fission reactions, but it can lead to a runaway process resulting in nuclear accidents. The result of the instability is the nucleus breaking up, in any one of many different ways, and producing more neutrons, which in turn hit more uranium atoms and make them unstable and so on. It is triggered by uranium absorbing a neutron, which renders the nucleus unstable. Fission and chain reactionsįission is the nuclear process that is currently run in nuclear power plants. Both reactions release energy which, in a power plant, would be used to boil water to drive a steam generator, thus producing electricity. However, fusion is combining light atoms, for example two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium, to form the heavier helium. In fission, energy is gained by splitting heavy atoms, for example uranium, into smaller atoms such as iodine, caesium, strontium, xenon and barium, to name just a few. ![]()
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