' largest' fusion fuel facility to be built | Hacker News Reader

' largest' fusion fuel facility to be built

bbc.co.uk

29 pointsneversaydie11 comments

That's some lazy journalism; they've omitted the name of the object they're writing about. So people could search for that name, you know?

The name of this fusion project is "H3AT",

https://ccfe.ukaea.uk/eni-and-ukaea-to-build-the-worlds-larg... ("...UKAEA-Eni H3AT (pronounced ‘heat’) Tritium Loop Facility...")

Here's slightly more information about it (maybe there's a better source)?

(.pdf) https://nucleus.iaea.org/sites/fusionportal/Shared%20Documen...

> That's some lazy journalism

I’ve come to believe that it’s actually also quite cunning. If they omit the name in a way that nobody notices, reader will be unable to find out any information for themselves, and will therefore not expose any factual errors in the article.

Not sure if this is conscious cunning by the BBC, but they probably employ people whose skillset and style is shaped by the “writing for the web” industry - and we know that the modern web is a cattle ranch. Got to keep the animals inside the funnel, pointing in the right direction.

It could have had the name originally and the editor / author removed a sentence at some point containing it, and no one noticed.

It's 'World's largest', but HN ate the headline.

Wouldn't just building a CANDU reactor be more effective? They produce both power and tritium.

They are not producing tritium; this is chemical engineering research geared at processing different forms of tritium. See

(.pdf) https://nucleus.iaea.org/sites/fusionportal/Shared%20Documen...

- "Storage and Delivery System for hydrogen isotopes is based on storage of tritium in the form of metal hydride and storage of deuterium in the form of metal hydride or in an alternative form;"

- "System for hydrogen isotopes removal from various gaseous mixtures (simulating the plasma exhaust of a fusion machine);"

- "Isotope Separation System (ISS) using ITER-like cascade of hydrogen cryogenic distillation columns;"

- "ITER-like Water De-tritiation System (WDS) based on CECE (Combined Electrolysis and Catalytic Exchange) technology;"

- "ITER like Atmosphere De-tritiation System (ADS) based on catalytic conversion of hydrogen containing species into water vapour followed by tritium removal from water vapour in wet scrubber column."

Looking at the fact there are currently no active electricity generating fusion power plants, and we do not know which technology will "win", how likely is this a waste of money ? Or am I missing a point ?

You need fuel to conduct experiments

Most experimental approaches to fusion use a deuterium-tritium reaction. It's not the only possibility but it's not a wild bet that tritium will be needed whichever fusion tech wins.

And as tritium has a relatively short half life, it makes sense to research ways to generate, recycle and store it.

There's no reason to wait for a self-sustaining reactor to be online before you start to research other technologies that would be needed for a commercially viable setup. There's no obvious reason why this shouldn't be done in parallel.

The value of the basic research aside, it strikes me that it's as least as valuable as any current fusion research.

The article discusses only the peaceful uses. But tritium must also be constantly replenished in the h-bomb arsenal due to its half life of ~12 years.

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