I’m not sure what you’re arguing against here. The new fusion startups claim the tech now exists to make compact useful Tokamaks. I’m not a physicist of any kind, so I don’t know what they think their MVPs are. I don’t know, and am not claiming to know, if they’re jumping straight to {Q_total, Q_plasma} > 1 or if they’re going to make a mere Q_plasma > 1, Q_total < 1 “fund-raising only” demo reactor first.

I’m responding to “but I have no idea if any of them are currently attempting Q_total > 1 or not.” My point is that literally nobody is going to set their target on Q-total > 1 without first setting a target of Q-plasma > 1. It would be like wondering if a rocket company was setting their sights on landing on the moon straight away or if they were going to attempt to escape earth’s atmosphere first.

Edit: one might think Q-plasma > 1 is just an internal milestone, not a public goal, but it’s not. Fusion startups are all going to be forced to make a public fuss over Q-plasma > 1 because the amount of funding you need to get from there to Q-total > 1 is MASSIVE and that milestone will be an investor aphrodisiac.