If you have to deal with radioactive materials, why not just use fission?Fundamentally: fission fuels are limited, particularly uranium. If humans were to run current energy demands 100% on uranium-based nuclear power, we'd burn through reserves in about two decades.[1]
Breeder reactors and thorium fusion change that calculus, as might viable uranium recovery from seawater. (Uranium, unlike thorium, dissolves in seawater, though the quantities of water which would have to be processed would be absolutely immense and nontrivial on multiple grounds.)
Fusion is based on hydrogen and a few other light elements, which are vastly more prevalent, most notably as water found on Earth (and elsewhere in the solar system should we use so much hydrogen that net water prevalence is affected).
The slight hitch in the scheme is that whilst fission is so simple an untrained janitor can achieve it,[2] or even plain old dumb rocks,[3] fusion turns out to be fiendishly difficult on Earth / at terrestrial conditions.
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Notes:
1. Based on a 200 year supply at ~10% of total energy supply presently, which scales to ~20 years at 100%: <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glo...>.
2. For example: Oak Ridge prodcedures / Feyman (~1945) <https://robertlovespi.net/2014/09/07/how-richard-feynman-sav...>, Cecil Kelley (1958) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Kelley_criticality_accid...>, Y-12 plant (1958) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-12_National_Security_Complex...>, Vinča Nuclear Institute (1958) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin%C4%8Da_Nuclear_Institute#1...>, Wood River Junction (1964) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_River_Junction,_Rhode_Isl...>, Mayak (1968) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak#1968_Criticality_Inciden...>, and Tokaimura (1997) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accidents> being just a few. Wikipedia has a more comprehensive listing: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident#Known_inc...>. My point isn't that the perpetrators were necessarily janitors, or untrained (though some effectively were), but that criticality was achieved entirely unintentionally. Accidental fusion criticality incidents are far less frequent.
3. "Natural fission reactors" are a thing: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...>. To be fair, so are natural fusion reactors, though few have yet been discovered on Earth: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star>.
Fundamentally: fission fuels are limited, particularly uranium. If humans were to run current energy demands 100% on uranium-based nuclear power, we'd burn through reserves in about two decades.[1]
Breeder reactors and thorium fusion change that calculus, as might viable uranium recovery from seawater. (Uranium, unlike thorium, dissolves in seawater, though the quantities of water which would have to be processed would be absolutely immense and nontrivial on multiple grounds.)
Fusion is based on hydrogen and a few other light elements, which are vastly more prevalent, most notably as water found on Earth (and elsewhere in the solar system should we use so much hydrogen that net water prevalence is affected).
The slight hitch in the scheme is that whilst fission is so simple an untrained janitor can achieve it,[2] or even plain old dumb rocks,[3] fusion turns out to be fiendishly difficult on Earth / at terrestrial conditions.
________________________________
Notes:
1. Based on a 200 year supply at ~10% of total energy supply presently, which scales to ~20 years at 100%: <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glo...>.
2. For example: Oak Ridge prodcedures / Feyman (~1945) <https://robertlovespi.net/2014/09/07/how-richard-feynman-sav...>, Cecil Kelley (1958) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Kelley_criticality_accid...>, Y-12 plant (1958) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-12_National_Security_Complex...>, Vinča Nuclear Institute (1958) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin%C4%8Da_Nuclear_Institute#1...>, Wood River Junction (1964) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_River_Junction,_Rhode_Isl...>, Mayak (1968) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak#1968_Criticality_Inciden...>, and Tokaimura (1997) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accidents> being just a few. Wikipedia has a more comprehensive listing: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident#Known_inc...>. My point isn't that the perpetrators were necessarily janitors, or untrained (though some effectively were), but that criticality was achieved entirely unintentionally. Accidental fusion criticality incidents are far less frequent.
3. "Natural fission reactors" are a thing: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...>. To be fair, so are natural fusion reactors, though few have yet been discovered on Earth: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star>.