Lithium-6 & the no-breeding claim.

Lithium-6 is how D–T reactors breed their own tritium. Whether Kronos 'needs no lithium breeding' depends on which machine you mean — the answer flips between the two.

Lithium-6 role

Breeds tritium: ⁶Li + n → T + ⁴He

Breeder (HYPERION)

Uses neutron breeding — deliberately

Burner (D–³He)

No breeding, no lithium blanket

The claim

Applies to the burner only

When a fusion neutron strikes lithium-6, it splits into tritium and helium — the reaction that lets a D–T plant make its own fuel. So lithium breeding and D–T go together. The two Kronos machines treat it oppositely.

• The breeder relies on neutron breeding. HYPERION's entire purpose is to breed, at a tritium breeding ratio up to 1.8. Its blanket chemistry is a feature, not something it avoids.
• The burner breeds nothing. The D–³He burner runs on supplied fuel and produces few neutrons, so it needs no lithium blanket at all.

The "no lithium, no breeding" story is therefore a statement about the burner. The breeder's breeding is the thing that makes the whole breed-then-burn strategy work.