Elon: Roll the dice to see if I’m getting drunk!
Elon: Roll the dice to see if I’m getting drunk!
In my experience the community will usually distinguished between “scientific Q” and “wall plug Q” when discussing fusion power gain. Scientific is simply the ratio of power in vs power out, whereas wall plug includes all the power required to support scientific Q. Obviously the difference isn’t always clearly delineated or reported when talking to journalists…
OK, so we should be clear there are broadly two approaches to fusion: magnetic confinement and inertial drive.
In magnetic confinement a plasma is confined such that it can be driven to sufficient density, temperature and particle confinement time that the thermal collisions allow the fuel to fuse. This is what the OP article is talking about. This Tokamak is demonstrating technologies that if applied to a larger the experiment could probably reach a positive energy output magnetically confined plasma.
The article you referenced discusses inertial drive experiments, where a driver is directly pushing the fuel together, like gravity in the sun, a fission bomb shockwave in a hydrogen bomb, or converging laser beams in Livermore’s case.
Livermore’s result is exciting, but has no bearing on the various magnetic confinement approaches to fusion energy.
For ages I’ve wanted to run a Friar Tuck themed drunken master style of Monk. In the right group and setting it could be loads of fun.
This is a good video on the subject
In both cases, maybe I’d more frequently be able to resist the temptation to talk about both subjects if I had the option to use them at work.