this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
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155
Clean energy could be 'closer than ever' after a nuclear fusion machine smashed a record (qz.com)
submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Clean energy could be 'closer than ever' after a nuclear fusion machine smashed a record::JET's final nuclear fusion experiment produced a record-breaking 69 megajoules of heat. Nice.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the problem that Uranium has a half-life of a couple hundred million years, while the half life of beryllium is less than a second?

Only Beryllium-10 has a long half-life for beta decay. Adding another neutron drops that back down to a few seconds and additional neutrons drop it back to a fraction of a second. So as long as that specific type of Beryllium isn't used, it would be fine, right?

Edit: https://www.thoughtco.com/beryllium-isotopes-603868

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Those quick half-lives decay right away, losing a neutron, right? So that Berillium-11 just decays back into Berillium-10.

The problem is that the blanket is constantly absorbing neutrons from the fusion reactions, that's it's job. So despite using simple berillium 5 to build your blanket, you end up with these heavy isotopes over time, and because the heavier ones quickly decay into lighter ones, you basically end up with a whole lot of berillium-10.