Practical extraction of heat from the reaction chamber walls without interfering with the many laser penetrations has not been solved. The largest and most notable ICF device is the National Ignition Facility, which started construction in 1997.Ĭhallenges: Laser-plasma instabilities produce high-energy electrons which transport much of the energy and fusion fuel before it can fuse. History: Inertial confinement was first proposed in the 1960s, and the first large-scale ICF devices didn’t start operation until the late 70’s. The resulting shock wave within the pellet heats up the plasma faster than it can radiate it away. High-Level Concept: Dozens to hundreds of extremely powerful pulsed lasers or ion beams focus their energy on a small fusion fuel pellet, compressing it rapidly. Notable Projects: Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Tokamak Energy, ITER, CTFusion, JET The sheer scale, complexity and tolerances required to achieve reliable confinement are also a challenge.

Magnetic confinement of hot plasma ions does nothing to remove the large number of neutral atoms within the reactor, all of which rob the plasma of fusion energy making net energy generation more difficult.

Imperfections in the magnetic confinement lead to large scale disruptions in the plasma, loss of confinement and serious damage to the reactor. Recently, new high-temperature superconducting materials such as yttrium-barium-coper oxides are promising to make magnetic confinement more feasible.Ĭhallenges: Tokamaks require extremely strong magnets in the 3 to 20 Tesla range which also require high tolerances. Despite being proposed in 1985, ITER is not projected to be operational until 2035. History: More than 200 tokamaks have been built since the 1960’s, the largest and most ambitious of which is the ~$25 Billion ITER project still being constructed in southern France. The word “tokamak” is a Russian acronym for “toroidal chamber with axial magnetic field”. In a Tokamak, powerful electromagnetic fields combine with electrical current flowing directly through the plasma to heat and confine the toroidal plasma. High-Level Concept: The most famous embodiment of an MCF device is a tokamak.

What is the orbitron