Many alternate fusion concepts are being investigated even though Tokamak magnetic confinement systems remain a leading candidate for practical fusion energy reactors. The leading alternatives are compared in the video series The New Fusion Race.
 Chart - The New Fusion Race.png)
This chart shows one way to compare the alternative fusion approaches (places 5-11) with the mainstream efforts (places 1-4) using the Lawson product of density, confinement time and ion temperature.
Dense Plasma Focus Device FF-1 undergoing microwave plasma cleaning.
Alternate Fusion Concepts
- Colliding Beam Fusion
- Electric Tokamak
- Floating Multipole
- Focus
Fusion
(Dense Plasma Focus) - Heavy Ion Fusion HIF
- Inertial Electrostatic Confinement
- Inertial Fusion Energy IFE
- Matter-antimatter systems
- Reversed Field Pinch RFP
- Reversed Field Configuration FRC
- Spheromak
- Stellarator
- Spherical Torus ST
- Magnetized Target Fusion MTF
- Tandem Mirror
- Z-pinch
Research Centers emphasizing Alternate Fusion Concepts
- Chinese Academy of Sciences, EAST in Hefei, China
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, NIF in Livermore, CA
- Culham Center for Fusion Energy, JET in Oxfordshire, UK
- Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics, W7-X in Greifswald, Germany
- LPPFusion, Focus Fusion in Middlesex, NJ
- Sandia National Laboratories, Z-Machine in Albuquerque, New Mexico
- Czech Academy of Sciences, PALS in Prague, Czech Republic
- TAE Technologies (formerly Tri Alpha Energy), CBFR in Foothill Ranch, California
- EMC2, WB-8 in Santa Fe, New Mexico
- General Fusion, Burnaby, British Columbia
- Helion Energy, Fusion Engine in Redmond, WA
- Fusion Studies Laboratory, Dept of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering,
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois - LANL
Fusion Energy, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos,
New Mexico
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