100 karma · joined April 19, 2017
>Although most people with poor systems knew they had problems and wanted to correct them
And also states that most of the problem is due to money (or lack of).
In India even most of those in rural areas with toilets don't use them. [1]
Further, even in urban areas of those those with access to toilets, 7.5% choose open defecation on the streets instead.
Pretending that people that want indoor plumbing but can't afford it is the same situation as people with access to plumbing but don't use it is very disingenuous.
[1]https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-05-12/india-access-toilets-...
Almost none of the problems listed there seem to be deal breakers. Most of them seem to be a matter of small improvements that probably aren't the primary focus of research right now.
For example I'd imagine researchers have a fairly steady supply of tritium, they don't need to focus fairly hard on recovering it all, just enough to save on costs since it's pretty expensive. Why bother trying to recover 100% of tritium for a reaction that you can't even get energy positive yet? Trying to make it more efficient when you can't even make it work seems to be putting the cart before the horse.
And that seems to be the case with the fuel, too (at least how described in the article). Once we get the process working with the easy fuels it seems that the next target for research would be using fuels that might be better but harder to work with.
>Corrosion in the heat exchange system, or a breach in the reactor vacuum ducts could result in the release of radioactive tritium into the atmosphere or local water resources. Tritium exchanges with hydrogen to produce tritiated water, which is biologically hazardous. > Most fission reactors contain trivial amounts of tritium (less than 1 gram) compared with the kilograms in putative fusion reactors. But the release of even tiny amounts of radioactive tritium from fission reactors into groundwater causes public consternation.
He seems to negate his own point by saying that the tritium output is less than a thousandth of what it is in fission. It might not be perfect but that sure sounds like an improvement to me. Even better once they start recovering larger amounts of it (he said himself that they need to recover at least 99% of it).
Also, from my (limited) knowledge of tritium it isn't that dangerous. It is in watches, weapon sights, emergency signs, and many other glow in the dark things. I've researched it before due to having several tritium containing products and it seems that in small amounts it simply vents into the atmosphere and becomes a non issue.
Anyway please correct me if I'm wrong on anything.
If you insult someone's mother, you might get hit. If you leave valuables or cash on top of a car in a bad neighborhood it might be stolen. It's still the fault of whoever did the bad action, and everyone would be better off if you didn't need to take precautions line that, but you could have easily taken steps to lower the chance of it happening.
If you say to buckle your seatbelt, get a fire extinguisher, or look both ways before crossing the road no one bats an eye. God forbid you acknowledge that there are bad people in the world and you should take steps to protect yourself from them.