Slashdot Mirror
Thermonuclear Reactor To Use Coconut Shells
destinyland writes "A key component of a $10 billion nuclear fusion plant is vintage 2002 Indonesian coconut-shell charcoal. After a 20-year search, German researchers discovered that the coconut-shell charcoal is the best medium for 'adsorbing' waste byproducts sucked out of the thermonuclear reactor's vacuum chamber. In what will be the first fusion power facility that's commercially viable, magnetic fields will heat hydrogen isotopes to over 150 million degrees Centigrade. (Essentially, the super-hot plasma creates artificial stars.) As the article points out, 'It's not quite a Starship warp drive, but it does harness the power of the sun.'"
The head of the project, a former professor, was heard mumbling "Gilligan won't mess it up this time."
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
That's not the power of the sun, you're just bangin' two coconuts together!
Fixed that for ya
Any editor discussing technology who still feels the need to put the word adsorb into quotes, as though it's not a legitimate English term, should be fired. If you're afraid your audience won't understand, then insert a sidebar on the mechanics of adsorption; don't act as though it's a term out of sci-fi.
It was Maryann that always made my coconuts radioactive. Those shorts!!!!
Table-ized A.I.
The 'containment shell' you are speaking of is called the thermal shield, and it is 10 inches of solid carbon steel (usually A36). First, the inside few inches may undergo embrittlement over the course of decades. There is still plenty of ductile material left to hold things together. Second, there will be literally no mechanical stresses in the thermal shield other than gravity... seems like 10 inches of steel ought to be able to hold itself up. It will see thermal stresses, but it is designed with expansion joints so that these to not convert into mechanical stresses. Finally, if these reactors follow any sort of conventional fission reactor design (they will), there will then be 6 feet of steel reinforced high density concrete surrounding the entire reaction chamber, called the 'bioshield'.
There is a lot of information on reactor design out there if you just look and educate yourself instead of reading an editorial and jumping to conclusions. the DOE's websites have a lot of non-classified documents out for public use.