Questions regarding stellarators

[Ortala]

I have two questions regarding stellarators:

how long can a plasma discharge last in a stellarator? wendelstein 7-x supposedly will achieve 30 minutes in the future with a water-cooled divertor, but can future stellarators achieve longer discharges? or is it going to be like the tokamaks where there is a fundamental limit of a few minutes due to the effects of the plasma current?

Also, can a future stellarator achieve energy breakeven due to size like ITER ?

 

[mfb]

how long can a plasma discharge last in a stellarator?

There is no hard limit. As long as heating and cooling work and no instability appears the plasma can stay. A power plant would try to run it continuously.
A tokamak has to induce a plasma current which means it has to ramp up magnets, and that can't go on forever. A stellarator avoids that, it directly provides a suitable magnetic field geometry from its coils and does not need a plasma current for it.

Also, can a future stellarator achieve energy breakeven due to size like ITER ?

Probably, but that is still studied.