[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

That’s what I’m thinking. If it’s that easy to get fusion power, who gives a crap about the rest of the device?

[TexasGator]

“That’s what I’m thinking. If it’s that easy to get fusion power, who gives a crap about the rest of the device?”

They are NOT getting fusion energy. Fusion is a source of neutrons.

[no-s]

Um.... If they can get controlled deuterium fusion working, why do they need a thorium fission reaction?

D-D fusion is a tabletop curiosity (eg ICF reactor)which requires more energy input than output, but it produces neutrons. Not self sustaining tho. But if scaled a bit the neutrons can be captured by thorium eventually resulting in fissionable U-233. The resulting fission will exceed breakeven by quite a bit, and the fission produces extra neutrons which permit scaling to higher efficiency. Also I notice the lifecycle to U-233 produces some high energy electrons (beta) which could conceivably be utilized to improve the fusion.