asymmetric_implosion wrote: James: FF will only burn a tiny amount of fuel per shot. My guess is it will be on the same order as an optimized NIF. NIF may not be perfect and it will not be a viable fusion reactor but physics breakeven is likely. Engineering gain is another story…
Obviously if you include all the fuel in the DPF chamber only a tiny fraction is burnt, but of that confined in the plasmoid(s) then maybe upto 70% could be fused.
For NIF I think they’re hoping for ~40% (of the DT gas and ice shell – not including ablative layer), but if they don’t get a burn wave then I guess it’ll be more like 2%
