[El Gato]

Point is, this is "fusion" of a kind, but not "the real thing", in the sense of producing large quantities of convertible energy.

Actually, if it produced a reasonable amount of net energy, you could just gang a potload of them together and you'd have your large quantities. It looks to me like the apparatus could be made by some sort of micro machining, similar to semiconductor manufacturing processes, which would allow you to make lots of little "reactors" fairly easily. You could probably just recycle the container, and the "fusion chips" as well when the container got brittle.

[chimera]

My guess, without running all the numbers, is that it is a net endothermic process.