I have a stupid question about a nuclear fusion reactor.
What would be the worst case scenraio if all safeguards failed and the thing blew up. Would the self-sustaining fusion process continue and spread or would it fizzle out on it's own before creating a second sun in our solar system? Or would it become a hydrogen bomb and take out a limited (but large) amount of geography in one big but short event? Or would it be a real life adaptation of the China Syndrome?
It's not a stupid question at all. In fact, it's the 64 trillion dollar question. What happens if the whole thing goes haywire? If anyone says they know, or even have an idea, I wouldn't trust it. There just isn't any empirical data to work with in the field of fusion. All we've done in the past is uncontrolled fusion
Throttling fission is child's play compared to throttling fusion. How is it going to be valved? The radio-chemistry is pretty straight forward:
^2D + ^3T = ^4He > n (Deuterium, Tritium yields Helium isotope and a free neutron)
So, like Pete said before, how are you going to exhaust the He, and how are you going to intake the D and T? Anyway, somehow it's gotta be throttle-able or the whole process will hit nuclear runaway. At this point, no one is offering up how much of intake x and y have produced isotope z thus proving a contained fusion reaction. Despite press releases to the contrary, no one has achieved any kind of unity(same power out and was put in). Not even close. The example would be the proverbial diesel engine where the starter is cranking over a V12, and fuel is only being pumped into one cylinder, and that one cylinder may be firing, but it's not nearly enough to overcome the friction and pumping power required to sustain the motion/reaction.
Now, lets suppose the good folks at LM come up with a workable goofamak reactor. They dip it in a giant vat of water, and it produces gobs of heat to boil the water, and produce steam, turn the turbine, make electric. Some of that electric power is going to have to go back into the process of maintaining the fusion. This is called the beta, or gain. Lets say they get real lucky and a 100MW reactor only requires 40MW to maintain fusion(just for giggles, don't go off on the numbers). That 40MW has got to come from somewhere, if the goofamak goes offline. No 40MW to keep it idling and the containment fails.
I can assure you, that at the temps and pressures of a working goofamak reactor, bad things are going to happen. Really, really bad things. This is why I
know that none of the reactors are achieving anything close to unity, because they are running in places like downtown LIVERMORE CA! With prolly 3 million people in the potential blast radius if/when something 'bad' happens.
You'll know things are progressing apace when a company moves it goofamak reactor to a cave in NM, and starts asking the grid for gobs of power from the utility. This is a sign that they are actually fusing the D and the T(or other close isotopes of their choice), and that they are worried about the results of the reactions. This is exactly why the boys at Fermi lab in IL relocated to a deserted part of NM. Because -- they fear greatly what could happen when things go very bad. Heck - they might even move it to the Gobi desert or something and get completely out of the country.
Some things can be fairly well discounted. There won't be any chance for a China syndrome because there is no fissionable materials to 'melt'. There's very little chemical fuel like Hydrogen or Carbon, but there will be some byproducts of the exhaust of ^4He as it decays, but the decay products are pretty well controllable in most cases. If there is a chemical explosion like happened at Chernobyl, it won't be much of an issue in light of the fusion reaction occurring withing the reactor.
Hard to know what will transpire, but this is one of the biggest questions of all in the fusion power process. LM can maybe make a reactor that will fit on a few big tractor trailers, but would you want it parked down the road from your house? Not me, no effing way do I want a fusion reactor anywhere within 100 miles of me. Sorry, no can do. What if the whole things comes apart? "sorry" is kinda weak once a hundred square miles are leveled by some kind of accident. My guess is that the whole thing will be sunk 4 miles deep in the ground, and the only thing that comes out is a couple of big cables for power, and a service tunnel to refuel, etc.
YMMV, don't try this at home, and may cause anal leakage.
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