Compared to the stellerator, tokamak is an older design. Germans have sucessfully built and tested the second generation stellerator, Wendelstein 7-X[1]. Now it will run for 32 minutes, where the Tokamak design is targeted for 1000 seconds, or 16 minutes. (Yes, a stellerator is much harder to build, but it's easier to control the plasma with; building one became feasible only after doing finite element analysis optimizations.)
That they got the tokamak design to work is a testament to "when in doubt, use brute force" maxim by Ken Thompson. It shows what can be done when banging on something until it works, but I don't think it's the best way forward, because the stellerator design already works, is easier to control plasma with, and is now in its third revision.
That they got the tokamak design to work is a testament to "when in doubt, use brute force" maxim by Ken Thompson. It shows what can be done when banging on something until it works, but I don't think it's the best way forward, because the stellerator design already works, is easier to control plasma with, and is now in its third revision.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X