Piece of a fission reactor became radioactive due to neutron bombardment.
Lost track of this radioactive piece in the pool, found it by accident, zap!
Neutrons make hardware radioactive.
Many on Hacker News fantasize about fusion (not fission) reactors. These fusion (not fission) reactors will be an intense source of fast neutrons. All the hardware in a fusion (not fission) reactor will become radioactive. Not to mention the gamma rays.
If you have to deal with radioactive materials, why not just use fission? After 70 years of working with fission reactors, we know how to build and operate them at 95%+ efficiency. Fission can provide all the power we will need in our lifetimes.
Quoting John Carmack: "Deuterium fusion would give us a cheap and basically unlimited fuel source with a modest waste stream, but it is an almost comically complex and expensive way to generate heat compared to fission, which is basically 'put these rocks next to each other and they get hot'."
Lost track of this radioactive piece in the pool, found it by accident, zap!
Neutrons make hardware radioactive.
Many on Hacker News fantasize about fusion (not fission) reactors. These fusion (not fission) reactors will be an intense source of fast neutrons. All the hardware in a fusion (not fission) reactor will become radioactive. Not to mention the gamma rays.
If you have to deal with radioactive materials, why not just use fission? After 70 years of working with fission reactors, we know how to build and operate them at 95%+ efficiency. Fission can provide all the power we will need in our lifetimes.
Quoting John Carmack: "Deuterium fusion would give us a cheap and basically unlimited fuel source with a modest waste stream, but it is an almost comically complex and expensive way to generate heat compared to fission, which is basically 'put these rocks next to each other and they get hot'."