"Fusion power's biggest question remains unanswered: how do you ensure the cost to start the fusion reaction isn't higher than the price at which you can sell the power? Plenty of people have ideas, but no one has cracked it yet. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, for example, is confident enough that it's building a massive reactor that costs several hundred million dollars. But the device won't be turned on until next year, leaving the question unanswered for now."
"Pacific Fusion is chasing an approach known as pulser-driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF). At its core, it's similar to the experiments carried out at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The company compresses small fuel pellets in rapid succession, and that compression causes atoms inside the fuel to fuse and release energy. But where NIF uses lasers to kick off the compression, Pacific Fusion wants to use massive pulses of electricity. Those pulses will create a magnetic field that encircles the fuel pellet."
Fusion power faces a core economic question: ensuring the cost to start the fusion reaction is lower than the price at which the generated electricity can be sold. Commonwealth Fusion Systems is building a massive reactor costing several hundred million dollars that will turn on next year, but the economic outcome remains unresolved. Pacific Fusion reports experiments at Sandia National Laboratory that it says eliminate some costly parts of its pulser-driven inertial confinement fusion approach. Pulser-driven ICF compresses small fuel pellets rapidly using magnetic fields generated by massive electrical pulses instead of lasers, targeting commercial plants in the early to mid-2030s.
Read at TechCrunch
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