Re:US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved
by moloch-hai on Tuesday December 13, 2022 @04:59PM
(#33976560)
The theory was proven to everybody's satisfaction in 1950.
There will be no production, except of new, smaller thermonuclear warheads. That is their legislated remit.
They are using inefficient lasers because they are cheaper to buy/maintain/modify for research purposes.
Determining the conditions for positive Q_plasma is largely a matter of science/research so the external system doesn't matter as long as the variables are controlled and results are reproducible.
Once positive Q_plasma is well understood/reproducible, achieving positive Q_total (more energy produced than spent running the infrastructure) is just a matter of engineering and potentially waiting for the SOTA for components (like lasers or materials) to catch up.
TLDR: This is the scientists proving the theory. Now it's the scientists' job to refine the theory. Then the engineers get to put it into production.