Fusion Energy Projects are Not Trying to Imitate the Sun

Post Intro: The quest to use fusion power for break-even electricity generation has sometimes been described as “putting the sun in a jar”. Where by “jar,” we mean a carefully arranged series of coils that produce a powerful confining magnetic field. Usually it’s called a tokamak (toroidal design) or stellarator (complicated twisty design that is still topologically a toroid). The sun is so enormous that confinement happens as a natural result of its own gravitational field. On the other hand, t...