Currently the maximum Q value achieved by humans is 1.53.
Had no idea someone had managed to get more energy out of a fusion device than they put in. Must have been unable to sustain it for any significant length of time, but still seems important.
The Q=1.53 was done at the National Ignition Facility using inertial confinement fusion, which is significant for plasma research (and probably bombs), but can’t be used to generate power.
Also this is just plasma gain, not whole system gain. To have a commercially viable reactor your probably need Q total > 10 at least. No system build so far even has a Q total of 1
I’d imagine, but I found this interesting:
Had no idea someone had managed to get more energy out of a fusion device than they put in. Must have been unable to sustain it for any significant length of time, but still seems important.
The Q=1.53 was done at the National Ignition Facility using inertial confinement fusion, which is significant for plasma research (and probably bombs), but can’t be used to generate power.
It was big news I want to say about a year ago when a team first published that they had done it
Also this is just plasma gain, not whole system gain. To have a commercially viable reactor your probably need Q total > 10 at least. No system build so far even has a Q total of 1
It was the NIF two years ago but it’s also not going to be generating power ever, it was just a demonstration/proof of concept.