ARC

Current obstacles

Physics limits

• Tritium must be bred faster than it burnsTritium decays with a 12.3-year half-life, so almost none exists in nature. Each fusion burns one tritium and releases one neutron, which makes at most about one new tritium, so margins are thin.
• Fusion neutrons wear out the inner walls14 MeV neutrons knock every atom in nearby steel out of place many times over a plant's life, making it brittle and radioactive. No wall material is proven for full power-plant doses.
• A steam cycle wastes most of the heatLike any thermal plant, ARC turns only about 40% of its heat into electricity, and magnets, pumps and plasma heating consume part of that, so fusion output must far exceed sales.