Re:MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion...
by ajdegol on Thursday September 09, 2021 @03:52AM
(#28467346)
The neutrons are what we will extract energy from, the alpha particles continue heating the plasma.
Re:MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion...
by tsimionescu on Thursday September 09, 2021 @01:39PM
(#28472391)
Some do, but most of them escape from the plasma, carrying away energy, and need to be captured by the neutron blanket. This amounts to a whopping 80% of the reaction energy.
The real dream are fusion reactions which don't produce neutrons, such as H1+H1 or much more realistically, H2+B11 (though still many times harder than H2+H3).
The biggest problem is the 'in theory' part. With current plausible designs, the vast majority of the fusion reaction's energy is carried away by high-powered neutrons, which are entirely waste products.