The burner harvests power in more than one mode: directed charged particles through the electrostatic converter, radiated power through radiation-handling surfaces, and the thermal balance through a compact bottoming cycle. No single path has to carry the whole plant.
The reference ledger routes the fusion power through several channels — directed particle energy to the direct converter, synchrotron and bremsstrahlung radiation to radiation surfaces, and residual thermal power to a bottoming cycle. Each channel is computed and specified against its own physics, so the harvest is diversified rather than staked on one converter.
A diversified harvest is more robust than a single-path one: if any single conversion mode underperforms, the others still contribute. It also lets the plant capture power that a direct-converter-only design would simply lose as heat.
| Mode 1 | directed charged particles (DEC) |
| Mode 2 | radiated power (radiation surfaces) |
| Mode 3 | residual thermal (bottoming cycle) |
| Design | diversified harvest |
| Robustness | no single path carries the plant |