Reply To: Proliferation?

[zapkitty]

Breakable wrote: As far as I see, Eric is specifically trying to workaround producing a neutron source. There are concerns of nuclear proliferation once you produce a cheap neutron source.

As I understand it the FF concept does not favor a neutron-steam-turbine setup. One reason is that the small size of the unit is not suited for the thermal output needed to drive efficient turbines. It’s going to be a chore to get 7-8 megawatts of heat out of the core of a 5 MWe pB11 FF unit but that should be doable…

… getting ~15 MWt out of the core of a 5 MWe D-T FF unit is going to be [em]extremely[/em] difficult.

Another showstopper for a neutronic FF unit is neutron activation and embrittlement. People speculate here in the forum as to the extent of the problems that may result from having occasional neutrons that carry only .2% of the pB11 reaction’s fusion energy….

… in D-T fusion the neutrons carry [em]80%[/em] of the reaction energy.

As far as I can tell an FF setup is not suitable for sustained neutronic power production… or even sustained neutron production.