I have noted this before in a number of posts and Robert Hirsch also reiterated this basic idea. Fusion should be able to be done small and succeed. If it can't, the idea of fusion for power use will always elude us.
Hirsch claimed full responsibility for the huge machine size ramp-up in the 70s. He looks at it as a grave mistake. His only defense is that the Russian Tokamak looked real good after nearly two decades of fiddling around with fusion at numerous small labs around the country. He wanted to see if the idea was viable and move out of the theoretical stage right to power production.
Much of this is found in the major books on the fusion history which I posted on the old BBS.
I have sort of set my power level at the under 1kw range and will work within this area to modify or redesign machines and learn. Just upping power is no way to experiment with these things. Higher neutron numbers at fixed power levels mean more efficient fusion.
Richard Hull
Created on Tuesday, December 12, 2000 10:02 AM EDT by Richard Hull