[fiftyfifty]

There are certainly some exciting projects happening in the fusion world coming up. It seems likely we will start seeing much higher energy outputs, I think for SPARC they are predicting >10x the energy produced as what it will consume (Q > 10).

My biggest question is with the crazy temperatures involved will we ever see one of these things able to run for hours at a time? With SPARC they are shooting for 10 second bursts, so that would double this breakthrough for the JET reactor. Even with the magnetic containment there are components in there exposed to millions of degrees Celsius right? That leaves us with some significant material science problems to solve.

[DennisP]

Temperature is high but total heat isn't remarkable. The atoms are moving very fast but there aren't many of them.