Blanket-Coupled MHD for Fusion to Electric Energy Conversion

The MHD generator is presently recognized as one of the more promising new methods of thermal to electric energy conversion and is presently being developed for this purpose, primarily with fossil fuels in mind as the source of heat. However, this "conventional" type of MHD, which uses a "plasma" having greater similarity to the combustion gas in a conventional furnace than to the cloud of kilovolt particles in the core of a fusion reactor, never-the-less offers a relatively straightforward but efficient method of converting into electric power the heat released by the fusion reaction.