In the long run, it's not known stellarators will be the eventual winner in the long race for a viable fusion reactor. The attributes in a winner will be net-positive operational efficiency and superior energy harvesting abilities. Perhaps multiple approaches will be viable.
To be honest, I've been interested in the domain for quite a time and I still want to build a fusor or a polywell at some point just to see it glow. Probably won't happen though.
This made me think of modern jet fighters being designed to be aerodynamically unstable, making them all but impossible for human pilots to operate without flight computers. Apparently the maneuverability benefits make the added complexity more than worth it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting...
> The very _complexity_ of it
> somehow feels subtly wrong.
I understand that it was hard to build, but isn't that just because it's a one-off?
Any one part of the inside of it looks no more oddly shaped than the outside of any modern car, and we've managed to scale that.
I read an article a while ago which sold me on the stellarator that said something like: "The tokamak has magnets in a configuration that gives simple engineering but hard physics, whereas the stellarator has hard engineering to make a complex magnet but that results in simple physics".
The engineering is a much more understood beast. It was still fairly novel as they had to have a computer do the design of the magnets, but that is now a solved problem. But then if that allows us to simplify the (very difficult and novel) physics it feels like the "obviously" correct decision.
The other thing that makes me a stellarator fan is that the JET/ITER work is later and more expensive that predicted at every stage. The W7-X provided a plan for the runs they wanted to do and upgrades to the reactor and they have basically run entirely to schedule.
What's even more interesting is that the fusor - the simplest possible design for a thermonuclear reactor, so simple that anyone skilled in electrical engineering and having access to proper civilan equipment can build one with ease - seems to be invented _after_ both stellarator and tokamak.
That said, I never particularly liked stellarator design. The very _complexity_ of it somehow feels subtly wrong, like doubling down in the wrong direction.
However, this is one of the cases where I would absolutely love to be proven wrong. We are far past due big breakthroughs in the field.