Replies to post #5836 on Arcam AB fka AMAVF

[Tom Joad]

re: ITER and EBM

The technological hoops to jump through to get this going are all enormous. I'm glad to see they're using metal printing.

Thanks to knowing a couple of the researchers, I got to see the stellarator fire up once at ORNL for a mircrosecond or two. That was back in 1993. That's all that was possible and that day, though I couldn't detect it, they had a good "run." The stellarator does not use a strict toroid geometry so the confinement space looks somewhat like a donut with spiraling ridges.

Talking first hand with these people helps you appreciate the enormity of the task, but they were strangely optimistic. I hope they're right, that we'll have harnessed fusion energy to produce electricity within, say, a decade.

ORNL fusion research