Comment by mjevans
7 years ago
The concerns and criticism make too much sense; as much as I want to believe a comic/movie density power solution (like arc reactors) can work...
I think the criticisms would have gone over better if something more than the implicit: 'look for better ideas' proposal had been included as a path.
It's been over 30 years; is there anything else as an idea in the field of power generation? (Preferably something we could also use in space)
"Fusion in a magnetically-shielded-grid inertial electrostatic confinement device"
> Theory for a gridded inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) fusion system is presented that shows a net energy gain is possible if the grid is magnetically shielded from ion impact. A simplified grid geometry is studied, consisting of two negatively-biased coaxial current-carrying rings, oriented such that their opposing magnetic fields produce a spindle cusp. Our analysis indicates that better than break-even performance is possible even in a deuterium-deuterium system at bench-top scales. The proposed device has the unusual property that it can avoid both the cusp losses of traditional magnetic fusion systems and the grid losses of traditional IEC configurations.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1510.01788