I recall multiple conflicting stories about how this is the future and how this is waste of money on a ill conceived giga-project.<p>I also recall a skunk works reactor that takes radically different approach (smaller reactors, instead of big) and was supposed to have results if few years.<p>[2014]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458339" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458339</a><p>Then there are new stories about skunk works being on track.<p><a href="https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/lockheeds-skunk-works-building-bigger-fusion-reactor" rel="nofollow">https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/lockheeds-skunk-works...</a>
All the while, we have the new company formed out of the work of the SAFIRE project that uses self-organizing plasma fields that makes traditional tokamaks look entirely stoneage.<p>Not only are they doing fusion at a tiny fraction of the power, they're doing it with a much much much smaller system that is producing heavier elements out of thin air <i>while</i> having started as just a "sun in a bottle" research system to understand how the Sun interacts with the electromagnetic field of the galaxy (and why the 1960s nuclear fusion model of the Sun explains <i>nothing</i> of the past 50-60 years of observations published since).<p>They did it on basically a shoestring budget, too.