Written by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor.

The prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recently published a story covering LPP Fusion. Author Mark Anderson describes the efforts at LPP FUsion, their unique approach to aneutronic fusion, upcoming publications as well as some quotes from Eric Lerner.

The article lays out the basic design and function of the dense plasma pinch reactor upon which LPP bases their work, much of which will be familiar to regular readers of the Focus Fusion Society.

More interesting is the mention of a publication under peer review at the journal Physics of Plasmas. Reportedly the proposed article will show the achievement of confined mean ion energies of 200 kilo-electron volts. To reach such energies, ions would need a temperature over two billion kelvins. This would establish another temperature record for LPP Fusion. Previous reports demonstrated electron and ion temperatures of 1.8 billion degrees.

Mr. Lerner noted “In the critical measure of how much energy out we get per unit energy in, we’re No. 2 among all the experiments in the world, and we’re only one-third behind the JET [Joint European Torus] experiment in the United Kingdom—which has almost a thousand times our resources. In terms of results per unit dollar, we’re clearly No. 1, by a long way.”

This insightful article is currently available at the online version if IEEE’s Spectrum, but will also be featured in the October 2017 print version. With beryllium electrode testing on the horizon, this story makes a nice end-note to achievements made with tungsten electrodes.