Tritium Self-Sufficiency, Honestly

Whether the breeder can fuel itself depends on a breeding ratio nobody has yet measured in a physical Kronos blanket — so we state it as a condition, not a fact.

The condition behind the product

The breeder (Hyperion) is designed to breed tritium — a product near the 4 kg/yr class, plus a helium-3 coproduct near 1.97 kg/yr. Whether it also fuels itself depends on the tritium breeding ratio (TBR) exceeding 1.0 in a real blanket. That is a condition to be measured, not a settled property, and we present it that way.

What we can and cannot say

• We can say: the design targets a TBR above 1.0, scanned across 1.1 / 1.5 / 1.8
• We can say: the product yields quoted assume a given breeding case
• We cannot say: the machine is self-sufficient — no blanket has been measured
• We flag openly: a local-versus-net TBR framing needs reconciliation

Why the honesty matters here

Tritium self-sufficiency is often quoted as if it were a solved property of a design. It is not; it is one of the hardest things a D-T machine has to prove. Presenting it as a measured range with an open reconciliation, rather than a single confident number, keeps the product story tied to evidence rather than hope.

When FOAK's blanket is measured, the range collapses to a value with error bars, and this condition becomes — one way or the other — a result.