23,000 hours worth of Burn?? you cant convince me this system is THAT efficient.
If you cant answer my question, say nothing.
This article is about an electric propulsion system. At present, the prototype is an electric propulsion system employing a novel propellant (lithium) that is powered (heated up / vaporized and - using electromagnetic fields - accelerated) using electricity taken from the lab's mains (wall socket) - i.e., they are probably designing - in parallel - the actual power supply that will have to be installed onboard the spacecraft. That onboard power supply will be nuclear - and thus thousands of times more efficient (kWh per kg of fuel) than any known chemical fuel.
Perhaps your confusion is due to your misunderstanding of the fact that, in a conventional (chemical) rocket, the fuel (e.g., a mixture of liquid oxygen as the oxidizer and some combustible substance like alcohol - in the old V-2 rockets) is simultaneously the propellant. The chemical reaction (burning) of the oxygen and alcohol creates the energy which heats up the throw-mass (i.e., the resultant CO2 and H2O of the exhaust).
In the novel electric propulsion system discussed here, the propellant and the fuel are two separate things.
Do you grant that a pound of, say, Uranium can be used to generate much, much more energy than, e.g., a pound of conventional solid rocket fuel or LOX/Hydrazine mixture?
Well, that's the trick here!
Regards,