How safe is safe enough. The relation of environmental characteristics and economic competitiveness in fusion-reactor design
The need for fusion energy depends strongly on fusion's potential to achieve ambitious safety goals more completely or more economically than fission can. The history and present complexion of public opinion about environment and safety gives little basis for expecting either that these concerns will prove to be a passing fad or that the public will make demands for zero risk that no energy source can meet. Hazard indices based on ''worst case'' accidents and exposures should be used as design tools to promote combinations of fusion-reactor materials and configurations that bring the worst cases down to levels small compared to the hazards people tolerate from electricity at the point of end use. It may well be possible, by building such safety into fusion from the ground up, to accomplish this goal at costs competitive with other inexhaustible electricity sources. Indeed, the still rising and ultimately indeterminate costs of meeting safety and environmental requirements in nonbreeder fission reactors and coal-burning power plants mean that fusion reactors meeting ambitious safety goals may be able to compete economically with these ''interim'' electricity sources as well.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA
- OSTI ID:
- 5789496
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-850310-
- Journal Information:
- Fusion Technol.; (United States), Vol. 8:1; Conference: 6. topical meeting on the technology of fusion energy, San Francisco, CA, USA, 3 Mar 1985
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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THERMONUCLEAR REACTORS
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ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
RADIATION HAZARDS
REACTOR SAFETY
COMPETITION
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ECONOMIC IMPACT
POWER GENERATION
PUBLIC OPINION
RISK ASSESSMENT
SAFETY ENGINEERING
THERMAL POWER PLANTS
THERMONUCLEAR REACTOR MATERIALS
ECONOMICS
ENGINEERING
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HEALTH HAZARDS
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700206* - Fusion Power Plant Technology- Environmental Aspects