Liquid walls for fusion reaction chambers

While liquid walls may arguably not be a necessary feature of a fusion ener gy power plant, their advantages-if they could be made to work-might make s uch a power plant so much more competitive as to push it "over the top" in the competition with alternative power plant options, This opinion paper di scusses some of the current issues with liquid walls. The idea is to replac e fusion's solid first wall-with all of its limitations due to radiation da mage, stresses, limited power handling, and materials development-with a li quid wall that would allow a higher power density without these limitations . Such a prospect is irresistible. In the case of inertial fusion energy, l iquid walls have become the main-line approach, and the object of research is to prove that they will work (i.e., can the chamber be cleared and ready for the next shot?), In the ease of magnetic fusion energy (usually in ste ady-state), liquid walls are thought not to work because of evaporation tha t contaminates the core plasma and/or the feasibility of open-channel liqui d metal flow, and the objective of research is to find ways to make them wo rk. There are also cases between the pulsed inertial fusion energy case and the steady-state magnetic fusion energy case.