Reply To: Investment risk

[asymmetric_implosion]

D+3He might be an easier path than p+11B at first but you could not claim an aneutronic success. My gut feeling is something like half your yield with very large error bars would be from D+D. One could argue that breakeven in itself is a big deal and it is. My opinion is a pinch device has reasonable odds of making it to breakeven first but it won’t be a PF. LPP is working toward or may have recently reached a 1 J fusion yield. With something like 50 kJ stored in the capacitor bank the Q is 5E-4. An experiment at Sandia using Z is my bet right now. They have better funding and more resources in terms of people. They also see an opportunity as NIF is pushed to the back burner. The MAGLIF experiment that will continue this year is quietly demonstrating some of the key technologies needed for their concept to work with D-T. I suspect when they fire fully loaded shots with D-D instead of D-T, they will reach a Q~0.1 very quickly. If their theory holds it will not be easy but a path forward to fusion will open up. Sandia has done a pretty good job of keeping the results low key and focused on science milestones as well as managing expectations with the funding agencies. NIF grossly over-promised and now they are paying for it.