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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
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday February 19 2020, @03:41AM
The z-pinch and several other approaches technicallyyield more energy than is input as long as you ignore the energy involved in practically rebuilding the thing after every pulse.
In other words, net loss of energy and entirely impractical for production.
The Farnsworth fusor can sustain fusion for days, but at a net loss. It's a decent source of neutrons, but not so much for producing energy.
It's fair to say those are research apparatus, worthwhile for that purpose, but not prototypes of a practical fusion generator.