https://nashboykin.com/tags/stellarator/ Recent content in Stellarator on Stars on Earth https://nashboykin.com/images/og-card.png https://nashboykin.com/images/og-card.png Hugo en-us 2026 Nash Boykin · Stars on Earth Wed, 12 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0400 https://nashboykin.com/posts/stellarator-vs-tokamak/ Wed, 12 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0400 https://nashboykin.com/posts/stellarator-vs-tokamak/ <p>I recently spoke with Lennart Bock at Proxima Fusion, and he got me thinking about stellarators. I&rsquo;d just finished writing about <a href="https://nashboykin.com/posts/laser-fusion-lcoe/">laser fusion</a> — one bet on how to hold a plasma together. Stellarators and tokamaks are a different fork: both use magnetic fields, and disagree about how to shape them.</p> <p>What I actually wanted to know was which one wins. Turns out that&rsquo;s the wrong question: the two designs aren&rsquo;t competing to be better at the same thing. A tokamak buys compactness by driving a current through the plasma, which does most of the confinement work for free. A stellarator refuses that current and shapes the field entirely with a far more complex coil set. Every difference below traces back to that one decision.</p>