Re: let me guess...
"It's still 20 years away."
yeah, it's the focus on Tokomak and lack of actual incentive for SUCCESS that's dragging the 'research' on indefinitely.
I'm not a 'cold fusion' activist or anything. I just think that for hot fusion, TOKOMAK isn't a very good design [unless you're doing research].
What you need is a method of confinement that doesn't involve large expensive superconducting magnets. You also need a method of excitation that doesn't involve a boatload of lasers. And you need a method of generating electrical power out of the fusion reaction. NONE of these are practical in a TOKOMAK design.
A design that MIGHT work has been explored by the U.S. Navy from what I understand. The first practical nuclear reactors were created by the U.S. Navy for submarines and ships. It goes without saying that classified programs building fusion reactors for submarines and ships is a likely path to commercial fusion reactors making electrons for your lights and appliances.
Here's a 2014 media article about a potential candidate: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/low-cost-fusion-project-steps-out-shadows-looks-money-n130661
It talks about 3 basic designs, the TOKOMAK (magnetic confinement), the 'pellet' reactor (inertial confinement), and this new 'wiffle ball' design aka 'Polywell' (which as I understand tries to use the characteristics of the plasma rather than fighting against it).
I'm not an insider, so maybe some of the details are outside of my knowledge base. I just remember reading about the Navy wanting fusion reactors, and a new type of design [probalby this one] was the most interesting and practical. Seems to me they're giving up a bit early, though, or they found something better...
But yeah, a new TOKOMAK record, that's like saying "look at the cool new vacuum tube we designed". Sure, a LOT of people might be interested, but not so much a breakthrough any more.
/me points out that to use fusion energy, you must capture it, and most of it is gamma radiation. If you can't put your reactor inside of a tank of water in order to boil that water and make steam, it won't be practical. And it has to produce at least 5 times as much energy as you put into it in order to make useful power, due to the ~20% thermal efficiency of a typical steam plant. Water is the most likely PRACTICAL absorber of gamma and neutron radiation energies. A few feet of water should absorb >90% of the gamma and neutron energy from fusion, easily. And so you see what the construction is going to have to look like, and how impractical the 'under vacuum' super-conducting magnet TOKOMAK would be in trying to get ANY kind of useful power out of it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
