Chris Harris, PhD
1 min readApr 30, 2024

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It was this kind of simple technology that led many people to think that fusion was just around the corner in the 1950s: whence, as iit seems, Lewis Strauss;s famous 1954 prediction of electrcity "too cheap to meter." Strauss, the villain (oif sorts) in the recent Oppenheimer biopic, was in charge of an initially secret fusion-power project called Project Sherwood in the early to mid- fifties. Unfortunately it has taken 70 years to get at least some of the bugs out. This is not to say that success will never be achieved by any means: after all, it took decades to achieve the blue LED as opposed to red, yellow, orange, and green ones,. The other interesting thing about Z-pinch is that in this geometry, it is dead easy to surround the core of the reaction with a thick flowing blanket of liquid metal neutron absorber and tritium breeder, whereas with a tokamak or stellarator it is difficult.

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Chris Harris, PhD
Chris Harris, PhD

Written by Chris Harris, PhD

I am an urban historian from Aotearoa New Zealand. With an engineering background, I also have a PhD in planning and economics.

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