Comment by Out_of_Characte | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Out_of_Characte | Hacker News Reader

Out_of_Characte

The mere fact that you're proposing doing this on a moving vessel already tells me you're completely incompetent. No one has made fusion net positive, somehow building a net positive fusion reactor on a boat would be fine I guess but to suggest its better than enriched uranium is dishonest. You'll have more luck building a regular fission reactor on a commercial freighter than verify a fusion reactor for any ocean capable ship.

Have you modeled how plasma will behave when your reactor walls move tens of meters in any possible direction while rotating violently in every degree of freedom? Mind you, its not the plasma I'm concerned about. The ideal gas law keeps the atmosphere nice and steady. Its more of a combination of high magnetic field strength with salt water everywhere around the reactor that when destabilised in the slightest will cause a massive implosion.

>Jason and I come from SpaceX and Tesla >in the coming decades (2050-2060) >we'll pivot to decarbonising the grid and saving the world

just make a fission reactor, on land, in a pit, with a massive concrete wall between me and potential neutrons.

You'll have more luck building a regular fission reactor on a commercial freighter than verify a fusion reactor for any ocean capable ship.

That part, I'm not so sure about. Enriched uranium is potentially dangerous stuff, and has to be guarded closely. In a world with literal pirates, getting one on a commercial ship sounds very, very unlikely.

As you say, fusion seems equally unlikely, albeit from a physics standpoint rather than a regulatory standpoint. It's hard to tell whether the immovable object of physics would dominate the unstoppable force of regulation, or vice versa.

We already have 70 years experience of marine nuclear reactors. Most of them highly enriched uranium or plutonium.

Submarines for electrolysis of water into breathable oxygen and electrical power for propulsion and aircraft carriers for its massive power density.

On the other hand, we have 0 years of operational experience with fusion reactors. We have 0 energy positive land based designs, 0 marine adaptations. We have discovered exactly 0 benefits of fusion reactor designs over fission. and I'm certain that we'll have more than 100 years of experience in commercial fission operation before we even have a single decade of net positive fusion energy.

Highly dangerous? Absolutely, but the giant weapons attached to these nuclear marine reactors have killed far more people than those reactors. Hell, those aircraft carriers experience more radiation from coal power plants than their own reactor. And I'm not kidding.

> Enriched uranium is potentially dangerous stuff

Doesn't have to be very enriched to be used as fuel. Fuel rods are really tame and can be handled pretty easily.

Once they get put into a reactor and it is turned on, it's a completely different matter.

There are alternative fuel sources as well.

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