Look at it this way. A bet placed on Focus Fusion or a derivative of the Farnsworth Fusor is a much better bet than money put down on a Tokamak. Why? Because if you assume that all three have about an equal chance of producing substantial quantities of power, the bets on Focus and Farnsworth are one whole hell of a lot cheaper the money required to construct any magnetic containment device. Most of the fusion reactor designs I have looked at are, well, ridiculous. It’s like we designed a stove that needs a flamethrower for a pilot light. I have a sneaking hunch that anything workable that comes out ITER will need its very on fission plant for start-up and standby.

My own personal inclination is to say that this design (Focus) and one of the Farnsworth derivatives are both far more likely to work than any of the other designs I have examined and I think I have looked at all the serious ones described on the web. There may be a secret one somewhere that I don’t know about, but all bets are off on those.