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  • Stephen Shanklandstshank
    Jun 24, 2026, 3:30 AM

    Nice new video showing the hoist of our third toroidal field (TF) magnet for our SPARC tokamak — the fusion demonstration machine we're building at CFS HQ in Massachusetts. These electromagnets (each strong enough to lift a small aircraft carrier) will help hold a superhot cloud of charged particles called a plasma. When those particles collide — that's fusion — the process releases tremendous amounts of energy. youtube.com/shorts/lflVjhWgads

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  • Brian Vastagbrianvastag@mas.to
    Jun 24, 2026, 3:33 AM

    @stshank I love what your company is doing, just wish it wasn't called CFS.

    Signed, someone diagnosed with CFS

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  • Karl Auerbachkarlauerbach@sfba.social
    Jun 24, 2026, 3:34 AM

    @stshank I worked on the magnetic confinement fusion project out at the Livermore labs back in the 1980's.

    It always made me nervous when I remembered that I was working across the street from a city-block sized ball of hot plasma being bounced back and forth between a pair of very large ying/yang magnets.

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  • Stephen Shanklandstshank
    Jun 24, 2026, 3:52 AM

    @karlauerbach It's pretty gnarly. It's also important to remember that these plasmas are delicate things that must be protected from the outside world. A puff of breath, about a million times denser than a fusion plasma and much much colder, would cause a plasma to collapse.

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  • Stephen Shanklandstshank
    Jun 24, 2026, 4:17 PM

    @karlauerbach I can't remember who wrote it, but I definitely read some sci-fi ages ago about aliens hanging out in the sun. I don't remember showing up on Earth. That would be a big bummer for a plasma creature. Did it hitch a ride on a CME?

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