Turbulence May Sink Titanic Reactor

Denver—The $10 billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is meant to demonstrate that fusion is a practical energy source. If all goes as planned, the reactor will cage million-degree ions for long enough to fuse and generate copious amounts of power—enough to ignite a self-sustaining fusion burn. But a physics-based theory says that turbulence could turn that flame into a fizzle, cooling the plasma and drastically reducing its power output.