How we covered fusion power

October 1983

From “The Trouble with Fusion”: The goal of the fusion program is to produce a reactor fueled by deuterium and tritium, isotopes of hydrogen containing one and two extra neutrons. This choice of fuel eases the problem of achieving an energy-producing reaction, but also has features that make it more difficult to turn that energy source into a useful power plant. The most serious difficulty concerns the high energy neutrons released in the deuterium-tritium reaction. These particles damage the reactor structure and make it radioactive. A chain of undesirable effects ensures that any reactor employing D-T fusion will be a large, expensive, and unreliable source of power.