Reply To: turn heat into electricity

[Maya]

vansig wrote: the article ignores aneutronic fusion, yet claims to cover all research. that doesnt add up.

I agree, but I think his point was that the Coulomb force barrier means that fusion generally will require significant pressure or reaction force when the reaction density, and hence the power density, reaches economic levels (even at just megawatts). So, regardless of the type of fusion considered it is very hard to do. Any of these other approaches could work but their machines will be far heavier than they lead us to believe because the pressures, again even at megawatt levels, will be extreme. So, there won’t be a “light, small or cheap” fusion reactor with any foreseeable technology. And that means you have to scale.