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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday February 18 2020, @02:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the playing-with-atoms dept.

Nuclear Fusion Power Without Regular Tokamaks Or Stellarators:

When it comes to nuclear fusion, the most well-known reactor type today is no doubt the tokamak, due to its relatively straight-forward concept of plasma containment. That's not to say that there aren't other ways to accomplish nuclear fusion in a way that could conceivably be used in a commercial power plant in the near future.

As we covered previously, another fairly well-known type of fusion reactor is the stellarator, which much like the tokamak, has been around since the 1950s. There are other reactor types from that era, like the Z-pinch, but they seem to have all fallen into obscurity. That is not to say that research on Z-pinch reactors has ceased, or that other reactor concepts — some involving massive lasers — haven't been investigated or even built since then.

In this article we'll take a look at a range of nuclear fusion reactor types that definitely deserve a bit more time in the limelight.

[...] Inertial Confinement Fusion

[...] Magnetic Confinement Fusion

[...] All the Other Designs


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday February 18 2020, @04:18PM (2 children)

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 18 2020, @04:18PM (#959564) Journal
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Interesting=2, Informative=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 1) by oumuamua on Tuesday February 18 2020, @05:52PM (1 child)

    by oumuamua (8401) on Tuesday February 18 2020, @05:52PM (#959606)

    That graph only goes to 2013

    What is the *CURRENT* state of Fusion funding?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday February 18 2020, @07:20PM

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 18 2020, @07:20PM (#959630) Journal

      Well, I was doing a lot of original research looking through budget proposals to try and figure out where fusion research is actually allocated.

      But I finally found a number someone else put together: 631 million 2019 dollars [aip.org], which is apparently 551 million in 2013 dollars.