Reply To: Earthquake v. Powerplants

[Rezwan]

Ivy Matt wrote: In my opinion, the main thing this situation has to do with nuclear fusion is that it’s a rather dramatic demonstration of what happens (and doesn’t happen) when you turn “off” a nuclear fission reactor, especially when the cooling system fails. One might be inclined to think that, because fusion requires ridiculously high temperatures (or kinetic energy of particles), that it’s even more dangerous than fission, and that a hypothetical fusion reactor will take longer to reach a safe state after shutdown than a fission reactor would.

Yes, do we have a description of what would happen to various fusion reactors upon shut down? Shutting down will simply stop the fusion, but it would be nice to have links to authoritative articles about this. Consider that many people have seen “Spider Man II” and that fusion mini-sun was growing out of control until doused by being submerged in water and Doc Ock’s redemptive sacrifice. A fun movie, but the misconceptions are out there.

This event could be a chance if it helps more people to comprehend phrases like “critical mass”, “fissile material”, and “chain reaction”, and to understand why they don’t apply to nuclear fusion.

Opportunities for education abound.

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Are you morsing me?