rashidas wrote: Here are some questions for FF devotees:

What sort of safety features would a prototype focus fusion reactor have? For example X-ray emission could be a problem.
How much would these features cost? What sort of training would power plant operators need? How long would state and federal permitting take?

Great questions. The biggest operational safety challenge that I can see is the potential lack of industry-standard NEMA and possibly IEEE approved enclosures and procedures for working with the high voltage pulses and the associated RF noise.

The unavoidable X-ray emissions will be contained within the outermost shield layer, comprised of ~2cm of lead.

The neurotoxin decaborane will also be confined to within the apparently massive shielding assembly, and limited to only a few pounds per year- probably less than a pound of solid fuel per maintenance cycle. The actual gas would be confined in a multi-walled fuel system within the core and vacuum chamber.

Since this fuel is a solid anywhere near room temperature, the gas should revert to solid form long before the core can be safely removed, which would eliminate the X-ray threat and all but residual capacitor charge issues if not engineered out of the system design.

Bottom line should be no realistic threat to industrial or neighborhood health not already faced by transformer substations and chemical plants or detergent manufacturers.