A New Kind of Fusion Reactor

A big advantage of the Boron 11 - Hydrogen fusion reaction is that hardly any neutrons are released. The deuterium-tritium reaction on which most fusion work has been done produces a large quantity of high energy neutrons which require shielding to avoid making surrounding material radioactive.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10894-019-00225-5

It's good to see another horse in the race.

I must say I like the direct to electric charge result rather than the old producing heat to boil something and propel a turbine generator, much more efficient concept...

...""The hydrogen/boron fusion creates a couple of helium atoms," he continues. "They're naked heliums, they don't have electrons, so they have a positive charge. We just have to collect that charge. Essentially, the lack of electrons is a product of the reaction and it directly creates the current."

The lasers themselves rely upon cutting-edge "Chirped Pulse Amplification" technology, the development of which won its inventors the 2018 Nobel prize in Physics. Much smaller and simpler than any of the high-temperature fusion generators, HB11 says its generators would be compact, clean and safe enough to build in urban environments. There's no nuclear waste involved, no superheated steam, and no chance of a meltdown.

"This is brand new," Professor Hora tells us. "10-petawatt power laser pulses. It's been shown that you can create fusion conditions without hundreds of millions of degrees. This is completely new knowledge. I've been working on how to accomplish this for more than 40 years. It's a unique result. Now we have to convince the fusion people – it works better than the present day hundred million degree thermal equilibrium generators. We have something new at hand to make a drastic change in the whole situation. A substitute for carbon as our energy source. A radical new situation and a new hope for energy and the climate.""...

Very exciting but too early for any real speculation...

"10-petawatt power laser pulses".

https://www.laserfocusworld.com/test-measurement/research/article/14074346/xray-freeelectron-lasers-could-assist-in-achieving-practical-nuclear-fusion

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've been dreaming about fusion forever.

Still the same challenge of getting more energy our than is put in. I don't know the physics of what keeps a star going, but what if it is as simple as having a large enough volume of reactions to make it self sustaining? What if that volume requires something the size of a star?