crowberry wrote:
The JET D-T runs will be done to study the new ITER like wall. They plan also to set new records, but this could mean running with the same power level as previously but this time for the full duration of the magnet cycle. Whether they can reach a higher fusion power level or break even or not remains to be seen. Obviously it would be great for the field in general if they could accomplish that.
They also improved the power supply, heating and the neutral beam injection a lot.
They are definitely planning to reach break even and they seem quite confident that they will. I am actually quite confident they will too.
crowberry wrote:
Rebuilding JET with superconducting magnets would probably be too expensive to make sense.
Most likely still cheaper and sooner than ITER, which was my point (ITER is delayed yet again and 4 billion Euro more expensive, again).
MIT and Tokamak energy are envisioning something the size of JET (or a bit smaller) as a practical reactor with super conducting magnets (among other things). So I think JET would be perfect for testing at least some aspects of their design (they want to do spherical tokamaks, or spheromaks, though).