The Test Burner (~2032)
Around 2032 a roughly 100 MW-class test burner is the first machine to operate near the burner design point and begin converting simulation into data.
Purpose of the test burner
The test burner, targeted around 2032 at a ~100 MW class, is not a commercial product. Its job is to operate the full deuterium–helium-3 chain — plug formation, central-cell confinement, direct energy conversion — close enough to the design point to shrink the 166–830x regime extrapolation and expose real failure modes.
What it must demonstrate
- A plug coil that survives its field (closing the 3–3.9x stress result)
- Confinement measured near the design regime, not extrapolated to it
- Direct energy conversion of the charged-particle flux at scale
- Component behaviour under the 5.44% neutron fraction
What it does not claim
The test burner is a learning machine. It is where availability, lifetime, and regime physics start earning operating hours. A commercial claim around 2036 depends on what it measures; it is not assumed in advance.
The test burner earns its place by converting the two hardest gates — plug feasibility and regime distance — from projections into measurements. It is sized to operate near the design point, not at commercial scale, precisely so that the physics can be learned before the engineering is committed. Everything it measures feeds the ~2036 commercial decision; nothing about that decision is assumed before it runs.
See test-burner success criteria and integrated systems test.