Fusion and the Environment The fusion fuel cycle does not involve any input of radioactive material and does not generate radioactive waste directly. Radioactivity is present in the form of the intermediate fuel, tritium, and as radioactivity generated in structural materials by the absorption of neutrons. There is the freedom, by suitable choices of design and materials, to reduce the radioactivity to achieve low hazard potential. Studies in this area have been promising and the independent review prepared for the European Commission by the Fusion Programme Evaluation Board was able to propose the following stringent targets as reasonable aims for the fusion programme: "The worst possible fusion accident will constitute no major hazard to populations outside the plant perimeter that might result in evacuation". "Radioactive wastes from the operation of a fusion plant should not require isolation from the environment for a geological timespan and therefore should not constitute a burden for future generations." The independent evaluation board concluded that these objectives "are viable targets with careful design and materials development, but their attainment should not be taken for granted". Because the safety and environmental friendliness of fusion are grounded largely in passive and inherent features of the design rather than on highly reliable safety systems, they should be more readily and transparently demonstrable to the non-scientific community. A major three-year project was set up within the European Fusion Programme in 1992 to study further how fusion's inherent safety and environmental advantages can be realised in feasible power station designs. The project reported its findings in 1995 and the main conclusion's were: "Fusion reactors have a great potential for safety. There is no possibility of uncontrolled power runaway since reactivity excursions of the plasma are limited by inherent processes. Even in the case of a total loss of active cooling, the low residual heating excludes melting of the reactor structures. There would be no rupture of the confinement due to internal events, or external events with occurrence rates larger than 10-7 per annum. These events will be covered by the design basis. Over their lifetimes, fusion reactors would generate, by component replacement and decommissioning, activated material similar in volume to that of fission reactors, but qualitatively different in that the long-term radiotoxicity is considerably lower [no radioactive spent fuel]. The use of advanced low activation materials and recycling could further ease the management of radioactive waste. Overall, the study indicates that fusion waste would not constitute a burden for future generations. ... ...There are no significant constraints on resource availability even for an extensive use of fusion energy over centuries The assessment confirms earlier findings that the advantages of fusion are not entirely inherent to the fusion process itself but also rest on other issues, in particular materials development and design decisions. The assessment helps in identifying the issues which need further study and the deeper understanding necessary to make progress towards the long-term objective of the Community Fusion Programme viz the joint creation of safe and environmentally sound reactors, resulting in the construction of economically viable power stations".

Fusion possesses advantages in the area of non-proliferation. Under IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) statutes, none of the materials present in a fusion power plant are categorised as being of nuclear safeguards significance or require Non-Proliferation Treaty controls. However, because fusion neutrons could be used to generate fissile material, fusion power plants will have to be subject to international safeguards. Such safeguards would be much cheaper and easier to enforce than in the case of fission, because one would be looking for fissile or fertile material in an environment where none at all should be present, in contrast to looking for small discrepancies in the large inventories of fission plants.