texaslabrat wrote: If one just wants to see a general energy out > energy in no matter if it’s heat/x-rays/electrical or whatever…

I’ve always understood “breakeven” to be used in this most basic way for all other fusion projects. It’s also my understanding that none of the multi-billion dollar research projects have accomplished this.

then maybe a series of shots could show that with D-D if instrumented carefully enough in an adiabatic chamber. However, from the pictures I’ve seen so far…I don’t get the impression that such an environment is present so careful heat exchange analysis is not in the cards.

That’s my impression as well. I was just curious as to why this wasn’t an initial goal of the research, since being able to accomplish this would go a very long way toward validating the FF approach — it would be doing for a few million dollars what the huge multi-billion research facilities haven’t been able to achieve over several decades. I would think this would be a hugely impressive milestone, and one that might help to free up further investment money and provide legitimacy to the approach. I’m sure the FF folks have thought of this, and I was just wondering as to why it was ruled out as a goal.