isn't it released in many ways that cannot really be harnessed directly eg: gamma radiation, x-rays, emf. Yes, just like nuclear fission! All this radiation ge

isn't it released in many ways that cannot really be harnessed directly eg: gamma radiation, x-rays, emf. Yes, just like nuclear fission! All this radiation gets absorbed by surrounding matter, and its energy becomes heat. Powers a steam or gas turbine -- just another heat engine (tm). With fusion reactors, the radiation absorber is a blanket of pipes filled with molten metal, several meters thick and several tens of meters in inner diameter. There's a critical second purpose to this: creating fusion fuel. The molten metal contains lithium, which on absorbing neutrons transmutes to tritium (hydrogen-3), which can be scrubbed out and recycled. Tritium is fusion fuel; fusion reactors must create it like this in self-sufficient quantities. About the fraction of energy captured; it's very close to 100% (only neutrinos escape), with the subsequent conversion from heat to electricity being some 30-50% efficient. http://www.iter-industry.ch/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Pr__sentation_Poitevin.pdf http://www.iter-industry.ch/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Pr__s... (particularly first few slides) http://aries.ucsd.edu/raffray/publications/JNM/ICFRM_10_Raffray.pdf http://aries.ucsd.edu/raffray/publications/JNM/ICFRM_10_Raff...