[pepsi_junkie]

It’s been 30 years since I studied nuclear physics but as I recall the purpose of the high strength magnets are to suspend a ball of superheated plasma within a strong magnetic field at the center of a superconducting toroidal electromagnet, mostly because, you know, it’s superheated and if it touched anything bad stuff would happen. So use magnetic fields to suspend it floating. Cool.

But the energy it took to actually heat the plasma up and power the magnets was so much that it has never been worth it. What has fundamentally changed? Stronger electromagnets = good. Do they require less power?

[lepton]

Stronger electromagnets = good. Do they require less power?

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Both less power, and denser fields, with superconductivity the heat output is tremendously reduced. With high temperature superconductors, the total power put through them can be higher, which can make them much smaller - an efficiency which feeds back on itself making the whole operation smaller and use less power.

The relationship isn’t linear, it is roughly x^3.

Here’s a cute video on magnetic fields and desktop plasma which might be interesting. Most of it is probably old hat to you, but there are some more recent things included.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2QaTyDJDEI