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RE: Science Series about Fusion: Part 1- Introduction to Fusion
So what does this mean. In short. Fusion reaction as a power source is completely clean and its effect on the environment is zero!
I disagree with that conclusion.
If I remember well the time where I studied this (please correct me if I am wrong), one of the problems of nuclear fusion is related to the fact that the powerplant facility may be highly contaminated due to the byproduct neutrons. They stay inside the reactor, as you said, but the reactor will be in turn highly contaminated.
There are always some environmental drawbacks... which is also true for renewable energies by the way.
Right now, in ITER, the materials that we are planning to use are Be and W. And as far as we know they are activated very little by neutronic bombardement. Be is a very light element so it is pretty obvious it cant be activated very efficiently and I found this article for W which states the activity of W inside a reactor decays in about 1 day. Which is a non-factor in my opinion.
The reactor will be contaminated with implanted T, which is radioactive (I will talk more about this next time). In ITER the maximum retained amount will be 700 g. That is not very much. Especially if you take into account the decay constant of T which is 12.3 years. Also T has a beta decay which means that most of the electrons will be completely stopped in the wall material.
So in summary. There is some very localized impacts on the environment. But in the grand scheme of things I think they are negligeble.
I agree with what you said (I have stopped following the fusion stuff more than 10 years ago and I will be therefore happy to read the next episode).
However, I would avoid saying that it has a zero impact on the environment. A zero impact does not exist, on the one hand, and such claims that are not entirely correct (even if the level of imprecision is small) may have huge consequence at the general audience level (things escalade quickly).
It is better to stay with the facts and let the people make their own conclusions.
(This is my opinion, let's be clear.)
I agree I should be more careful with my wording and I will be in the future. But is it really "correct" for the people to make their own conclusion. We as physicist have the responsibility of deciding what is important and what is not, because we are the guys who trully understand the problems and their weight. The general public does not.
But yes. Instead of zero impact I should have said negligeble impact. Obviously editing is not appropriate at this stage so I will be more careful in the future.
Thank you for your comment, by the way. It is much appreciated. :)
What I think (again, it is my opinion and only my opinion), we can help the general audience to conclude by bringing the, all the arguments. But we should not conclude for them. Maybe I am wrong, and of course your topic is much more sensible than mine with respect to the public (so that in short, it is difficult to say) ;)
I definitly respect your opinion. I am just not sure if I agree with you. As you said. The energy sector is a touchy subject in the public. I think people are more likely to jump to conclusions which are not correct, because they are not really familliar with the concept of "negligeble" as it is understood in science.
I guess it depends how deeply and calmly you have the time to explain (as it is sensible, staying calm may be hard :p)