zapkitty wrote: why pB&j and not D+D…
I believe that question was actually about why not p+Li7, p+F, or D+T. Lerner didn’t mention it, but tritium is rather difficult to get hold of, as it’s a highly-regulated (and dangerous) substance. Of course, you can always produce it yourself. But either way, it doesn’t make sense to use tritium for fusion research unless you have no hope of achieving breakeven with D+D, and you’re quite confident you’re close to breakeven with D+T. Even the tokamak people almost never use tritium in their experiments. After ITER is complete and well-tested (which should be some time between 2026 and never), then they’ll start using deuterium-tritium fuel.
