Reply To: would nuclear energy really be accessible to all?

[Brian H]

jamesr wrote:

Color me confused, but I thought the primary heat source/problem to be addressed was the plasmoid’s output, not the application of charge to the plasma through the birdcage.

Most of the energy from the plasmoid will be in the form of X-rays or the electron & ion beams – and hopefully more than was used to make it due to the excess of some fusion 😉 But most of the direct heat, will be from the resistive joule heating due to the current flow in the anode & cathodes. The total surface area of the ~12 cathodes is much larger than the anode so their proportion of the heating problem will be less – hence why we are concentrating on the anode.

A proportion of the X-ray energy will inevitably end up as heat, but that will be distributed throughout the volume of the anode and the whole spherical shell of components in the firing line.
Current causes heat; the only link in a circuit between the cathodes and anode is the plasma. It is still not clear to me that that circuit “closes”, resulting in current through the anode.