University of Wisconsin-Madison

From the previous lecture it is clear that Fusion Energy could provide that new energy source in the middle of the 21st Century that was postulated in Lecture 3. However, in spite of over 10 billion dollars of research, worldwide, in the past 30 years, the DT Tokamak does not appear to be the ultimate answer. The problem lies in both the DT fuel cycle, which emits 80% of its energy in highly damaging and radioisotope producing neutrons, and in the complex design of the Tokamak.
The problems, and the direction in which we need to go are outlined below.