Do we have a Fusion thread?

[twospoons]

While its easy to throw shade on all the fusion efforts going on around the world, its important to remember that fusion is a very difficult nut to crack. Every single experiment yields more knowledge about the subject, knowledge which can be leveraged in future efforts.  Look at Helion: they've had to make part of their reactor 25% bigger because an earlier experiment showed their predictions about the plasma were incorrect.

The Helion concept is intriguing, and looks promising considering how far they've already come. 

There must be other concepts that have yet to be explored thoroughly, but haven't through lack of funding.  Thats likely the biggest fault with ITER: its so big its sucking up all the money that could be used exploring multiple avenues to fusion.

[BrianHG]

There must be other concepts that have yet to be explored thoroughly, but haven't through lack of funding.  Thats likely the biggest fault with ITER: its so big its sucking up all the money that could be used exploring multiple avenues to fusion.

Careful, ITER funding so far after all the years of development is less than the investment in what was funneled into the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.  It's that no one gives an F about fusion and how much money we should actually be investing in it.  These small startups based on the tech required are all operating on a shoe-string budget.

The tip-top funded AAA video games have a better budget.

[daqq]

There must be other concepts that have yet to be explored thoroughly, but haven't through lack of funding.  Thats likely the biggest fault with ITER: its so big its sucking up all the money that could be used exploring multiple avenues to fusion.

Careful, ITER funding so far after all the years of development is less than the investment in what was funneled into the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.  It's that no one gives an F about fusion and how much money we should actually be investing in it.  These small startups based on the tech required are all operating on a shoe-string budget.

The tip-top funded AAA video games have a better budget.

I have to agree with the sentiment that we aren't investing nearly enough into these endeavors when compared to far more frivolous stuff. It hit me recently, through a friend I know how much time gets invested in really really useless gimmicky gadgets at bigcorp... And it's a LOT.
If we multiply the time invested by very good engineers and scientists by the amount of gimmicky gadgets, we get a really large number. I can't help but wonder where we would be if we redirected, say, 20% of the efforts and resources going into the development of newer TVs or IoT kettles and put them into something serious.

[metrologist]

Sabine finally addressed the NIF achievement

[JohanH]

Someone debunking the Helion concept totally:

[dmills]

NIF spends about 10% of its shots on fusion, the rest are weapons research and nuclear stewardship.

I tend to look at a lot of the startups and figure most of them are investment cons one way or another, I mean there is some good research being done, but that is a side effect of the money games.

I like the MTF general approach, but some of the startups around it are WEIRD in their approaches (Mechanically driven shockwaves in a lead first wall)?

One interesting observation is that a viable fusion plant has to operate with plasma condition many times more extreme then the core of the sun. When you do the numbers, the sun manages about 276W per cubic meter in the core, which is sufficient because the square cube law is a bastard at that kind of scale, that is NOT going to do it for a ground based power plant!

[Circlotron]

Yep, interesting result but still well below unity considering efficiencies, and there is no indication of how you'd do this in extremely rapid fashion.

Seeing it would have to be repetitive, I wonder if anyone has dared to suggest a very big piston, cylinder and crank? 

[BrianHG]

Latest private fusion startups: