If we go to basic research one could also mention cold fusion, or muon-catalyzed fusion, which goes back to Andrej Saharov. But if we stay within nuclear engineering and its long experience with coolants in Fission reactors, we must think of the simplest solution, that of boiling water.
Tullio

Agreed.

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tullio Muon-catalyzed fusion only seems use full in a lab at some particle accelerator but sound like the energy used to make the mumons defeats the purpose , uses more energy than it gives of ?

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tullio Muon-catalyzed fusion only seems use full in a lab at some particle accelerator but sound like the energy used to make the mumons defeats the purpose , uses more energy than it gives of ?

Frankly, I don't know much about it. But it was abandoned by the Russians who preferred to go the Tokamak route. It is still the more popular attempt. Besides ITER, there is the Joint European Torus in Garching and the Ignitor in Moscow, and probably others I am not aware of.
Tullio

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In 2013:

Nuclear Fusion Energy Research Inches Closer To Elusive Break-Even Point

The obstacles to realizing nuclear fusion involve engineering problems rather than basic physics.

Solutions?

Provide Energy from Fusion

Deuterium is a relatively uncommon form of hydrogen, but water -- each molecule comprising two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen -- is abundant enough to make deuterium supplies essentially unlimited. Oceans could meet the world’s current energy needs for literally billions of years.

Tritium, on the other hand, is radioactive and is extremely scarce in nature. That’s where lithium comes in. Simple nuclear reactions can convert lithium into the tritium needed to fuse with deuterium. Lithium is more abundant than lead or tin in the Earth’s crust, and even more lithium is available from seawater. A 1,000 megawatt fusion-powered generating station would require only a few metric tons of lithium per year. As the oceans contain trillions of metric tons of lithium, supply would not be a problem for millions of years.

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ITER should produce 500 MW of power. How much electric power? Nobody attempts an answer, because it could be depressing. Same for laser fusion.
Tullio

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ITER should produce 500 MW of power. How much electric power? Nobody attempts an answer, because it could be depressing. Same for laser fusion.
Tullio

That's depressing enough for me already.

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According to "Nature" of 2 June the US Department of Energy has recommended that the USA supports the ITER project until 2018, when it will conduct a review. The USA contribution amounts to 9% of the total budget. ITER is now directed by Bernard Bigot, a French nuclear scientist.
Tullio

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Wendelstein 7-X

2016: Hydrogen plasma at 80×106 K for 0.25 s according to expectations

Financial support for the project is about 80% from Germany and about 20% from the European Union. 90% of German funding comes from the federal government and 10% from the state government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The total investment for the stellarator itself over 1997–2014 amounted to 370 million euros, while the total cost for the IPP site in Greifswald including investment plus operating costs (personnel and material resources) amounted to EUR 1.06 billion for that 18-year period. This exceeded the original budget estimate, mainly because the initial development phase was longer than expected, doubling the personnel costs.[18]

In July 2011, the President of the Max Planck Society, Peter Gruss, announced that the United States would contribute 7.5 million dollars under the program "Innovative Approaches to Fusion" of the US Department of Energy.

Wendelstein 7-X is the world’s largest fusion device of the stellarator type. Its objective is to investigate the suitability of this type for a power plant. It tests an optimised magnetic field for confining the plasma, which will be produced by a system of 50 non-planar and superconducting magnet coils, this being the technical core piece of the device.

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