I'm a software guy, not an engineer, so I don't know the details of any of these attempts to get hydrogen atoms so close together that they can fuse. But here's an interesting fact from inside our own sun that I do know: even the gravity of the sun is not capable of bringing hydrogen atoms (bare protons in that intense heat) close enough to fuse together. And a good thing, too. If that gravitational force was enough to do it, the sun would burn all its fuel much more quickly than it is doing right now.
The only way there is any fusion going on in the sun right now, is the occasional instance of quantum tunneling that allows the rare two protons to get close enough for fusion to happen. Of course, quantum tunneling is there in our devices, too, if we get any of them to work. I'm not saying this to "prove" fusion reactors can't happen. I'm just saying the electromagnetic repulsion of protons to one another is so great that the gravity of the sun doesn't overcome it and that without quantum tunneling there would be no fusion there at all.
Just an interesting fact to ponder while reading of predictions, year after year, decade after decade, that commercial fusion reactors are "about 10 years away".
I’m just saying the electromagnetic repulsion of protons to one another is so great that the gravity of the sun doesn’t overcome it...
So, is it possible that at the heart of each star is a
small black hole, or the start of black hole?
Big enough to provoke fusion through QT?
Just wondering.
I once went to LLNL for a job interview. The guy told me that the start-up power for the magnetic bottle experiments was IIRC 900MW. Before I post a number that big, I gave it a few minutes looking around for it (no joy) and in the process ran across a discussion of some of the problems they’d encountered describing “micro turbulence” as a barrier to sustaining a reaction. I was left with the thought about how the reality of simple ideas and principles seems always fantastically complex. Muse for the day.