3 ms·

It's unclear whether it's possible to reach a breakeven point.

• jackpirate 15y ago
  That's true for any controlled fusion reaction.
  • VladRussian 15y ago
    the lowest upper bound we have is 5-10Kt thermonuclear bomb. I.e. we do know that using at least one type of confinement - inertial - with X rays as driver it is possible to get energy-net-positive on the scale of such a small bomb. On the other side, ie. the lower bound - the Z machine at Sandia is generating X rays with power enough to drive the reaction similar to how the fusion is driven by X rays in the H bomb, just on the much smaller scale, and we do know that scaling it up or the other existing designs, like the tokamak or polywell or laser driven device like NIF, does increase the reaction efficiency. Somewhere between is the practical energy-net-positive reactor. It can be order or 2 of magnitude bigger than ITER - well, the modern coal burning or nuclear plant is several orders of magnitudes bigger than the campfire of the cavemen where it started from.