Talk:Nuclear fusion–fission hybrid

Reprocessing

The following sentence is wrong: Unlike a conventional fission reactor, the fusion hybrid can consume almost all of the uranium fuel without enrichment or reprocessing. This has advantages for non-proliferation, as enrichment and reprocessing technologies are also associated with nuclear weapons production

Hybrid reactors requires reprocessing.

--- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.111.86.195 (talk) 08:40, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure you have "reprocessing" defined correctly. If you look at the articles used here as references, they specifically state that one of the potential fuel inputs for the process is "spent nuclear fuel", which by definition means not reprocessed. Reprocessing is an extremely expensive, difficult, and problemmatic chemical and physical process involving the separation of the many elements and their isotopes that are formed from nuclear fission. Please see the spent nuclear fuel link to see all the elements listed. If you are referring to RE-FORMING spent nuclear fuel, you would be correct. In this instance, there is NO chemical separation, only a change in form factor to create fuel elements for insertion into a hybrid reactor. The neutron absorbing "reactor poisons" which are the reason that spent fuel is removed from a fission reactor are SPECIFICALLY LEFT IN the mix since this is what is being destroyed by neutron irradiation (they do not generate energy). Disposal of radioactive actinides is one of the bonus side effects of power production using spent fuel. If you are referring to the spent-spent fuel (to coin a phrase) that is PRODUCED from the hybrid reactor, there is no reason to re-process this fuel since the products are already transmuted to a safer (not safe, but safer) form and there are almost no fissionables remaining in the mix. The main reason to reprocess spent fuel is to extract the usable fissionable elements. Spent fuel coming out of a LWR contain copious amounts of fissionables which can be used for fuel or weapons (after separation), which is NOT the case with a hybrid, which would be significantly less useful as a starting point for weapons proliferation than natural uranium ore. Pmarshal (talk) 14:06, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

comparison

How would this technology compare to a much simpler traveling wave reactor? Both would get rid of nuclear waste. Both would be inherently safe. Traveling wave, if one can believe the hype, could be designed to require no operators and no maintenance of the reactor itself. By contrast this technology would appear to be much more complex - and expensive.

Fine by me. Anything that works. One advantage of fusion driven design though, is the extremely high native energy of the fusion neutrons emitted which can cause fissioning of normally "non-fissile" isotopes such as U-238 directly, something that no other fission design can do. Added link to Travelling Wave Reactor Pmarshal (talk) 06:28, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Removed because this is an inaccessible link (requires membership):

• Potential Role of Lasers for Sustainable Fission Energy Production and Transmutation of Nuclear Waste http://www.springerlink.com/content/9803n15542276654/fulltext.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pmarshal (talk • contribs) 06:54, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Name

Why is this called "Hybrid nuclear fusion" rather than "Hybrid nuclear fission" when the actual power output is from fission, not fusion? The references seem to favour "Hybrid Fission-Fusion" which makes more sense. --dab (𒁳) 09:47, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Must be Included

There needs to be a section on Fusion-fission hybrid, that discusses the use of the tokamok. I am just beggining my research into the subject, but I know the tokamok hybrid is already in a teoretical Design stage at the Georgia Institue of Technology, with posters on the wall and Graduate students dedicated to the project. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.236.152.194 (talk) 21:56, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

If you wish to add something about the use of Tokamak type reactors that would be fine. Please note that I do indicate that Tokamaks hybrid designs are being considered. The difference between ICF and Tokamaks is that the first is essentially a point source of neutrons while Tokamaks are more diffuse (annular) sources. I noted that the principles are similar between the two types, but the geometries must be quite different. Pmarshal (talk) 11:26, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Advert module

I have inserted an advert warning because the text repeats speculative advantages of the subject and fails to describe the scientific background, i.e. at least the nuclear processes involved. Remove the module when this information (and sources) is added and/or the text ist shorter and more neutral. --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 16:14, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Otherwise nonfissile?

I've made a change to remove a very confusing claim.

Fissile has a clearly defined technical meaning. Andrewa (talk) 23:29, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

... and exactly that technical meaning is relevant here. I added an explanation. --mfb (talk) 03:04, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

OK, here's my attempt...

And you haven't added any explanation at all, just reverted my edit.

It's rather challenging! Neither version is very satisfactory IMO. I had not realised that fissionable has a long history of confusing usage, but now do, see my new essay fissile and fissionable.

Not quite sure how to best resolve this. But the current version is not terribly satisfactory IMO. Andrewa (talk) 13:49, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I didn't just revert, as the diff you linked easily shows. But you can also compare the article before your edit to my edit. --mfb (talk) 02:07, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Muons: still exotic?

Exotic particles seem to mean dark matter nowadays? Muons are Muons, but does it add anything to call them exotic anyway? Midgley (talk) 01:57, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Relative to hydrogen, helium, uranium and so on they are quite exotic. But we could write short-living instead of exotic, that's more relevant. --mfb (talk) 10:42, 4 March 2021 (UTC)