Reply To: Energy Output – MW & GW

[zapkitty]

delt0r wrote: At 1% output power, activation is something that happens and that matters. It is not background. But it is manageable.

Ah, I was referring to pB11, boron fusion, which is estimated to have less than 0.2% of its energy in neutrons. My apologies… I was being pB11-centric 🙂

Less than 1% is just the cutoff point above which a particular reaction is not considered to be aneutronic… the actual percentage can be much lower than that and pB11 is the only aneutronic contender being researched at all.

BTW, “less than background” only refers to conditions outside the shield, which is a meter of water, some B10 and with a layer of lead as the final backstop.

delt0r wrote: Even much less than 1% (say kW or even 100W ) of neutron power over long term needs to be considered. aka Activation and corrosion modes of materials…

… and LPP has calculated that an end-of-life core (actually, a pre-recycling core) will have the the radiation output of a classroom of kindergarteners.

(I didn’t know that school lunch programs could still afford bananas…)

That’s not radioactive waste… that’s a paperweight 🙂