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Glossary
Direct Energy Conversion (DEC)
Turning charged-particle energy straight into electricity, skipping the steam cycle.
Direct energy conversion decelerates the plasma's escaping charged particles against an electric field, recovering their kinetic energy as electricity without a thermal cycle. It only works when most of the fusion energy is in charged particles — as in D–³He.
The Kronos burner's DEC stage operates at about 0.70 efficiency, which is what lets it quote an engineering gain of QE = 1.31.