# MIT modular fusion power



## TØny Hine (Aug 12, 2015)

MIT designs small, modular, efficient fusion power plant.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/mit-desig...il&utm_term=0_6de721fb33-2304da18d3-282032326

Uses? Power for shipboard lasers, massive tanks, subs....

Sci-fi uses?


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 12, 2015)

If real (and there is another contender), then it's not SF.
Tokamak theory is from 1950s. Really in absolute terms not a huge amount of effort and money spent.
On big ones to supply a country:

Iter (current research Fusion Tokamak)
Demo (Next model, may have net output)
Then commercial power stations.
See Lockheed Martin
http://aviationweek.com/fusion
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html

Lockheed Martin are not progressing it till they have a partner. Costs too much for them to develop on their own. Interesting the MIT proposal is just a scaled down Tokamak. The Lockheed Martin design isn't a Tokamak, but might benefit from the MIT ideas.

I'm not sure how viable the MIT idea is. But MIT certainly can't build a commercial prototype of it.

Practical Space use (which really what you mean, not SF?) is to power a Linear Accelerator on a spacecraft so that an Ion Drive can use a 1/10th or 1/100th of the reaction mass (by throwing it out the back at higher velocity).

SF is things like Jump drive, Stargates or Warp drive etc, which we don't know how to do at all. They likely need a lot of power.

Unlike actual Interstellar travel we do sort of know the theory of Fusion power generation.


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