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October 1983
From “The Trouble with Fusion”: The goal of the fusion program is to produce a reactor powered by hydrogen isotopes of deuterium and tritium, containing one and two extra neutrons. This choice of fuel simplifies the problem of performing an energy-producing reaction, but it also has features that make it difficult to convert that energy source into a useful power plant. The most serious challenge concerns the high-energy neutrons released in the deuterium-tritium reaction. These particles damage the reactor structure and make it radioactive. The chain of undesirable effects makes any reactor using DT fusion a large, expensive and unreliable power source.
As these disadvantages become more widely recognized, frustration with the fusion program will undermine the prospects of other fusion programs, no matter how cleverly steered them for decades to come.
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