I do think that eventually we’ll figure out artificial fusion as a viable power source, but I agree with you that it’s unlikely to come out of one of the big efforts currently ongoing. More likely something like magneto-inertial liner fusion, or perhaps as a result of us learning more about the detailed dynamics of high-temperature plasmas (which are still quite mysterious).

That said, I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at when you talk about plasma temperatures. IIRC, some fusion experiments have produced plasmas in that temperature range, and the Z-machine achieved a 2-billion K plasma quite a while ago.

Thank you for the link, especially for pointing out the comment by pdf27. However, that does not change my mind that Alpha Energy is running a scam. “Commercial-scale nuclear fusion will likely have to operate in the range of a billion degrees centigrade.” Is that not a dead giveaway? 10^9 K is the temperature of the Big Bang at 100 sec.

As to the tokamak, we now have experienced 40 years of failure in that design (which admittedly is only one likely to succeed), so I don’t think it is going anywhere, although pdf27 apparently hasn’t given up on it.

If you have access to Science and Physics Today, you might want to read the following:

W. D. Metz (1976), “Fusion Research (I): What is the Program Buying the Country?,” Science, vol. 192, pp. 1320-1323.

W. D. Metz (1976), “Fusion (II): Detailed Reactor Studies Identify More Problems,” Science, vol. 193, pp. 38-40, 76-?

W. D. Metz (1976), “Fusion Research (III): New Interest in Fusion-Assisted Breeders,” Science, vol. 193, pp 307-?

W. E. Parkins (1978), “Engineering Limitations of Fusion Power Plants,” Science, vol. 199, pp. 1403-1408.

W. E. Parkins (1997), “Physics Today,” pp. 15, 101-102.

I don’t wish to regurgitate ancient history, but there has been very little, if any, progress on the tokamak design.

The real killer, however, is the cost. Back in the 70′s it was estimated that the capital cost of a working tokamak machine would be an order of magnitude larger than the cost of a fission reactor, then the most expensive source of electricity. So, even if we could somehow solve the engineering problems of the tokamak, it would have no commercial or military use.

The tokamak is just one of several Big Science projects that should be shut down. Nominations are open.

Tokamaks, Inertial compression and their kin such as pdf27′s stellerator variant have gone nowhere and done nothing for 50 years, and they will GNDN for 50 more if not murdered with a joyful song on the heart. They are wonderful money siphons and jobs programs for plasma physics PHds. Nothing more. They are not designed for even extrapolation to practical energy results. ITER itself will outmass a European aircraft carrier and the neutronicity of its DT fuel cycle makes it utterly impractical for commercial energy generation.

Every time you hear that ITER is short of money and its staff on the verge of unemployment, let it gladden your heart.

[Isegoria: No prob! Fixed the link.]

Consume?? 60 million degrees?? This almost certainly yet another example of criminal fraud in the swamp of fusion power.