Nuclear energy: The hybrid returns

Abstract

Nuclear fission plants have produces a stream of radioactive nuclear waste, laced with potentially bomb-grade plutonium and greenhouse-gas-free energy. Meanwhile, thermonuclear fusion promises to produce an even greater supply of clean energy. Since fusion generates neutrons, these neutrons could help burn up fission's waste almost completely, leaving a residue greatly reduced in both volume and radioactivity. Thus, a fusion-fission hybrid reactor is taking its way in solving these problems regarding radioactive nuclear waste. The fusion reactor design is based on a doughnut-shaped tokamak, generating high energy neutrons that drive fission in the surrounding blanket of fissile material. Placing nuclear waste in this blanket should in principle burn up all the long-lived radioactive by-products produced by the fission process.