> "It was originally planned to line the tokamak reactor with protective beryllium but that turned out to be very tricky. It is toxic and eventually it was decided to replace it with tungsten... That was a major design change taken very late in the day.”
The toxicity of beryllium is well known... how did this design decision go through? Someone was asleep at the wheel.
The Be would be inside the (radioactive) reactor vessel, which already has extremely strict isolation requirements. I believe it's accessed and maintained with robotics.
As for the change, I'm just an interested amateur, so shouldn't go into details and please take this with a big grain of salt, but I've heard it was a result of proposed scenario(s) that some do not regard as realistic.
The toxicity of beryllium is well known... how did this design decision go through? Someone was asleep at the wheel.