From Eric Kvaalen
At the beginning of your interesting article on advances in fusion research you describe the dream of unlimited, clean energy with relatively little radioactive waste (9 February, p 36). But to quote from a relatively positive article in Ullmann’s Encyclopaedia of Industrial Chemistry (vol 17, p 804): “Assessments indicate that tokamak fusion reactors produce huge amounts of radioactive waste during their lifetimes … It must be disposed of in geologic repositories. Indications are that the high and low-activity wastes are comparable in volume and initial activity to those of a fission reactor with the same power output.”
These wastes come from the corrosion and erosion of materials made radioactive by the intense radiation in the reactor.
Qiryat Byalik, Israel
