I disagree with Krivit. He wrote: In inertial fusion science terminology, the phrase “sparked a reaction” indicates only the final amount of power that arrives at the fuel target. It does not include the vast majority of the power required to operate the fusion device. The company’s reactor is actually designed to consume more electrical power than it produces by fusion, resulting in a net energy loss.
This is not deceptive. On the contrary, it is the best way to measure the heat from the fusion reaction. Including all of the power consumed by the machine, as Krivit suggests, would obscure the issue. That power is somewhat arbitrary, and it is not optimized. Including all of it would be like including the power consumed in electrolysis cold fusion. Input electrolysis power is arbitrary because it can be reduced by bringing the anode and cathode closer together, or by increasing the concentration of the salts in the electrolyte. Also, electrolysis power is steady and easily measured, so it is easy to subtract. It is not meaningful. This discussion reminds me of people at LENR Forum who insist that the so-called COP in cold fusion is meaningful. It is not meaningful, and it isn't even a COP, which only applies to a heat pump. Krivit's suggestion is actually even worse than including electrolysis. It would be more like including the power consumed by the flow calorimeter compensation heater. A test reactor is likely to consume more electric power than it produces by fusion. It wouldn't be a test reactor otherwise. It would be a prototype commercial reactor. The ratio of input power to the entire reactor probably has no bearing on what a commercial prototype would be like, unless the test reactor requires many orders of magnitude more input power than could possibly reach the target in any real-world configuration. That is the case with some tokamak and inertial confinement reactor designs. But that is apparent from the descriptions of the test. They are not hiding that fact. - Jed
