title: Fusion power

text: Fusion reactions occur when two or more atomic nuclei come close enough for long enough that the nuclear force pulling them together exceeds the electrostatic force pushing them apart, fusing them into heavier nuclei. For nuclei heavier than iron-56, the reaction is endothermic, requiring an input of energy. The heavy nuclei bigger than iron have many more protons resulting in a greater repulsive force. For nuclei lighter than iron-56, the reaction is exothermic, releasing energy when they fuse. Since hydrogen has a single proton in its nucleus, it requires the least effort to attain fusion, and yields the most net energy output. Also since it has one electron, hydrogen is the easiest fuel to fully ionize.


title: Fusion power

text: The strong force acts only over short distances (one femtometre at most, the diameter of one proton or neutron), while the repulsive electrostatic force between nuclei acts over longer distances. In order to undergo fusion, the fuel atoms need to be given enough kinetic energy to approach each other closely enough for the strong force to overcome the electrostatic repulsion. The amount of kinetic energy needed to bring the fuel atoms close enough is known as the "Coulomb barrier". Ways of providing this energy include speeding up atoms in a particle accelerator, or heating them to high temperatures.


title: Fusion power

text: Once an atom is heated above its ionization energy, its electrons are stripped away. The resulting bare nucleus is known as an ion. This ionization makes a hot cloud of ions and free electrons formerly attached to them, known as plasma. Because the charges are separated, plasmas are electrically conductive and magnetically controllable. Many fusion devices take advantage of this to confine the particles as they are heated.


title: Fusion power

text: A reaction's cross section, denoted σ, measures the probability that a fusion reaction will happen. This depends on the relative velocity of the two nuclei. Higher relative velocities generally increase the probability, but the probability begins to decrease again at very high energies.


title: Fusion power

text: In a plasma, particle velocity can be characterized using a probability distribution. If the plasma is thermalized, the distribution looks like a Gaussian curve, or Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution. In this case, it is useful to use the average particle cross section over the velocity distribution. This is entered into the volumetric fusion rate:


title: Fusion power

text: The Lawson criterion shows how energy output varies with temperature, density, speed of collision for any given fuel. This equation was central to John Lawson's analysis of fusion working with a hot plasma. Lawson assumed an energy balance, shown below.


title: Fusion power

text: Plasma clouds lose energy through conduction and radiation. Conduction occurs when ions, electrons, or neutrals impact other substances, typically a surface of the device, and transfer a portion of their kinetic energy to the other atoms. Radiation is energy that leaves the cloud as light. Radiation increases with temperature. Fusion power technologies must overcome these losses.


title: Fusion power

text: The Lawson criterion argues that a machine holding a thermalized and quasi-neutral plasma has to generate enough energy to overcome its energy losses. The amount of energy released in a given volume is a function of the temperature, and thus the reaction rate on a per-particle basis, the density of particles within that volume, and finally the confinement time, the length of time that energy stays within the volume. This is known as the "triple product": the plasma density, temperature, and confinement time.


title: Fusion power

text: In magnetic confinement, the density is low, on the order of a "good vacuum". For instance, in the ITER device the fuel density is about 1.0 x 10 m, which is about one-millionth atmospheric density. This means that the temperature and/or confinement time must increase. Fusion-relevant temperatures have been achieved using a variety of heating methods that were developed in the early 1970s. In modern machines, , the major remaining issue was the confinement time. Plasmas in strong magnetic fields are subject to a number of inherent instabilities, which must be suppressed to reach useful durations. One way to do this is to simply make the reactor volume larger, which reduces the rate of leakage due to classical diffusion. This is why ITER is so large.


title: Fusion power

text: In contrast, inertial confinement systems approach useful triple product values via higher density, and have short confinement intervals. In NIF, the initial frozen hydrogen fuel load has a density less than water that is increased to about 100 times the density of lead. In these conditions, the rate of fusion is so high that the fuel fuses in the microseconds it takes for the heat generated by the reactions to blow the fuel apart. Although NIF is also large, this is a function of its "driver" design, not inherent to the fusion process.


title: Fusion power

text: Multiple approaches have been proposed to capture the energy that fusion produces. The simplest is to heat a fluid. The commonly targeted D-T reaction releases much of its energy as fast-moving neutrons. Electrically neutral, the neutron is unaffected by the confinement scheme. In most designs, it is captured in a thick "blanket" of lithium surrounding the reactor core. When struck by a high-energy neutron, the blanket heats up. It is then actively cooled with a working fluid that drives a turbine to produce power.


title: Fusion power

text: Another design proposed to use the neutrons to breed fission fuel in a blanket of nuclear waste, a concept known as a fission-fusion hybrid. In these systems, the power output is enhanced by the fission events, and power is extracted using systems like those in conventional fission reactors.


title: Fusion power

text: Designs that use other fuels, notably the proton-boron aneutronic fusion reaction, release much more of their energy in the form of charged particles. In these cases, power extraction systems based on the movement of these charges are possible. Direct energy conversion was developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the 1980s as a method to maintain a voltage directly using fusion reaction products. This has demonstrated energy capture efficiency of 48 percent.


title: Fusion power

text: Plasma is an ionized gas that conducts electricity. In bulk, it is modeled using magnetohydrodynamics, which is a combination of the Navier–Stokes equations governing fluids and Maxwell's equations governing how magnetic and electric fields behave. Fusion exploits several plasma properties, including:


title: Fusion power

text: A deep reinforcement learning system has been used to control a tokamak-based reactor. The AI was able to manipulate the magnetic coils to manage the plasma. The system was able to continuously adjust to maintain appropriate behavior (more complex than step-based systems). In 2014, Google began working with California-based fusion company TAE Technologies to control the Joint European Torus (JET) to predict plasma behavior. DeepMind has also developed a control scheme with TCV.


title: Fusion power

text: Many approaches, equipment, and mechanisms are employed across multiple projects to address fusion heating, measurement, and power production.


title: Fusion power

text: The diagnostics of a fusion scientific reactor are extremely complex and varied. The diagnostics required for a fusion power reactor will be various but less complicated than those of a scientific reactor as by the time of commercialization, many real-time feedback and control diagnostics will have been perfected. However, the operating environment of a commercial fusion reactor will be harsher for diagnostic systems than in a scientific reactor because continuous operations may involve higher plasma temperatures and higher levels of neutron irradiation. In many proposed approaches, commercialization will require the additional ability to measure and separate diverter gases, for example helium and impurities, and to monitor fuel breeding, for instance the state of a tritium breeding liquid lithium liner. The following are some basic techniques.


title: Fusion power

text: Neutron blankets absorb neutrons, which heats the blanket. Power can be extracted from the blanket in various ways:


title: Fusion power

text: Confinement refers to all the conditions necessary to keep a plasma dense and hot long enough to undergo fusion. General principles:


title: Fusion power

text: To produce self-sustaining fusion, part of the energy released by the reaction must be used to heat new reactants and maintain the conditions for fusion.


title: Fusion power

text: Magnetic mirror effect. If a particle follows the field line and enters a region of higher field strength, the particles can be reflected. Several devices apply this effect. The most famous was the magnetic mirror machines, a series of devices built at LLNL from the 1960s to the 1980s. Other examples include magnetic bottles and Biconic cusp. Because the mirror machines were straight, they had some advantages over ring-shaped designs. The mirrors were easier to construct and maintain and direct conversion energy capture was easier to implement. Poor confinement led this approach to be abandoned, except in the polywell design.


title: Fusion power

text: Magnetic loops bend the field lines back on themselves, either in circles or more commonly in nested toroidal surfaces. The most highly developed systems of this type are the tokamak, the stellarator, and the reversed field pinch. Compact toroids, especially the field-reversed configuration and the spheromak, attempt to combine the advantages of toroidal magnetic surfaces with those of a simply connected (non-toroidal) machine, resulting in a mechanically simpler and smaller confinement area.


title: Fusion power

text: Inertial confinement is the use of rapid implosion to heat and confine plasma. A shell surrounding the fuel is imploded using a direct laser blast (direct drive), a secondary x-ray blast (indirect drive), or heavy beams. The fuel must be compressed to about 30 times solid density with energetic beams. Direct drive can in principle be efficient, but insufficient uniformity has prevented success. Indirect drive uses beams to heat a shell, driving the shell to radiate x-rays, which then implode the pellet. The beams are commonly laser beams, but ion and electron beams have been investigated.


title: Fusion power

text: Electrostatic confinement fusion devices use electrostatic fields. The best known is the fusor. This device has a cathode inside an anode wire cage. Positive ions fly towards the negative inner cage, and are heated by the electric field in the process. If they miss the inner cage they can collide and fuse. Ions typically hit the cathode, however, creating prohibitory high conduction losses. Fusion rates in fusors are low because of competing physical effects, such as energy loss in the form of light radiation. Designs have been proposed to avoid the problems associated with the cage, by generating the field using a non-neutral cloud. These include a plasma oscillating device, a magnetically shielded-grid, a penning trap, the polywell, and the F1 cathode driver concept.


title: Fusion power

text: The fuels considered for fusion power have all been light elements like the isotopes of hydrogen—protium, deuterium, and tritium. The deuterium and helium-3 reaction requires helium-3, an isotope of helium so scarce on Earth that it would have to be mined extraterrestrially or produced by other nuclear reactions. Ultimately, researchers hope to adopt the protium–boron-11 reaction, because it does not directly produce neutrons, although side reactions can.


title: Fusion power

text: This reaction is common in research, industrial and military applications, usually as a neutron source. Deuterium is a naturally occurring isotope of hydrogen and is commonly available. The large mass ratio of the hydrogen isotopes makes their separation easy compared to the uranium enrichment process. Tritium is a natural isotope of hydrogen, but because it has a short half-life of 12.32 years, it is hard to find, store, produce, and is expensive. Consequently, the deuterium-tritium fuel cycle requires the breeding of tritium from lithium using one of the following reactions:


title: Fusion power

text: The reactant neutron is supplied by the D-T fusion reaction shown above, and the one that has the greatest energy yield. The reaction with Li is exothermic, providing a small energy gain for the reactor. The reaction with Li is endothermic, but does not consume the neutron. Neutron multiplication reactions are required to replace the neutrons lost to absorption by other elements. Leading candidate neutron multiplication materials are beryllium and lead, but the Li reaction helps to keep the neutron population high. Natural lithium is mainly Li, which has a low tritium production cross section compared to Li so most reactor designs use breeder blankets with enriched Li.


title: Fusion power

text: The neutron flux expected in a commercial D-T fusion reactor is about 100 times that of fission power reactors, posing problems for material design. After a series of D-T tests at JET, the vacuum vessel was sufficiently radioactive that it required remote handling for the year following the tests.


title: Fusion power

text: In a production setting, the neutrons would react with lithium in the breeder blanket composed of lithium ceramic pebbles or liquid lithium, yielding tritium. The energy of the neutrons ends up in the lithium, which would then be transferred to drive electrical production. The lithium blanket protects the outer portions of the reactor from the neutron flux. Newer designs, the advanced tokamak in particular, use lithium inside the reactor core as a design element. The plasma interacts directly with the lithium, preventing a problem known as "recycling". The advantage of this design was demonstrated in the Lithium Tokamak Experiment.


title: Fusion power

text: Fusing two deuterium nuclei is the second easiest fusion reaction. The reaction has two branches that occur with nearly equal probability:


title: Fusion power

text: This reaction is also common in research. The optimum energy to initiate this reaction is 15 keV, only slightly higher than that for the D-T reaction. The first branch produces tritium, so that a D-D reactor is not tritium-free, even though it does not require an input of tritium or lithium. Unless the tritons are quickly removed, most of the tritium produced is burned in the reactor, which reduces the handling of tritium, with the disadvantage of producing more, and higher-energy, neutrons. The neutron from the second branch of the D-D reaction has an energy of only , while the neutron from the D-T reaction has an energy of , resulting in greater isotope production and material damage. When the tritons are removed quickly while allowing the He to react, the fuel cycle is called "tritium suppressed fusion". The removed tritium decays to He with a 12.5 year half life. By recycling the He decay into the reactor, the fusion reactor does not require materials resistant to fast neutrons.


title: Fusion power

text: Assuming complete tritium burn-up, the reduction in the fraction of fusion energy carried by neutrons would be only about 18%, so that the primary advantage of the D-D fuel cycle is that tritium breeding is not required. Other advantages are independence from lithium resources and a somewhat softer neutron spectrum. The disadvantage of D-D compared to D-T is that the energy confinement time (at a given pressure) must be 30 times longer and the power produced (at a given pressure and volume) is 68 times less.


title: Fusion power

text: Assuming complete removal of tritium and He recycling, only 6% of the fusion energy is carried by neutrons. The tritium-suppressed D-D fusion requires an energy confinement that is 10 times longer compared to D-T and double the plasma temperature.


title: Fusion power

text: A second-generation approach to controlled fusion power involves combining helium-3 (He) and deuterium (H):


title: Fusion power

text: This reaction produces He and a high-energy proton. As with the p-B aneutronic fusion fuel cycle, most of the reaction energy is released as charged particles, reducing activation of the reactor housing and potentially allowing more efficient energy harvesting (via any of several pathways). In practice, D-D side reactions produce a significant number of neutrons, leaving p-B as the preferred cycle for aneutronic fusion.


title: Fusion power

text: Both material science problems and non proliferation concerns are greatly diminished by aneutronic fusion. Theoretically, the most reactive aneutronic fuel is He. However, obtaining reasonable quantities of He implies large scale extraterrestrial mining on the moon or in the atmosphere of Uranus or Saturn. Therefore, the most promising candidate fuel for such fusion is fusing the readily available protium (i.e. a proton) and boron. Their fusion releases no neutrons, but produces energetic charged alpha (helium) particles whose energy can directly be converted to electrical power:


title: Fusion power

text: Side reactions are likely to yield neutrons that carry only about 0.1% of the power, which means that neutron scattering is not used for energy transfer and material activation is reduced several thousand-fold. The optimum temperature for this reaction of 123 keV is nearly ten times higher than that for pure hydrogen reactions, and energy confinement must be 500 times better than that required for the D-T reaction. In addition, the power density is 2500 times lower than for D-T, although per unit mass of fuel, this is still considerably higher than for fission reactors.


title: Fusion power

text: Because the confinement properties of the tokamak and laser pellet fusion are marginal, most proposals for aneutronic fusion are based on radically different confinement concepts, such as the Polywell and the Dense Plasma Focus. In 2013, a research team led by Christine Labaune at École Polytechnique, reported a new fusion rate record for proton-boron fusion, with an estimated 80 million fusion reactions during a 1.5 nanosecond laser fire, 100 times greater than reported in previous experiments.


title: Fusion power

text: Structural material stability is a critical issue. Materials that can survive the high temperatures and neutron bombardment experienced in a fusion reactor are considered key to success. The principal issues are the conditions generated by the plasma, neutron degradation of wall surfaces, and the related issue of plasma-wall surface conditions. Reducing hydrogen permeability is seen as crucial to hydrogen recycling and control of the tritium inventory. Materials with the lowest bulk hydrogen solubility and diffusivity provide the optimal candidates for stable barriers. A few pure metals, including tungsten and beryllium, and compounds such as carbides, dense oxides, and nitrides have been investigated. Research has highlighted that coating techniques for preparing well-adhered and perfect barriers are of equivalent importance. The most attractive techniques are those in which an ad-layer is formed by oxidation alone. Alternative methods utilize specific gas environments with strong magnetic and electric fields. Assessment of barrier performance represents an additional challenge. Classical coated membranes gas permeation continues to be the most reliable method to determine hydrogen permeation barrier (HPB) efficiency. In 2021, in response to increasing numbers of designs for fusion power reactors for 2040, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority published the UK Fusion Materials Roadmap 2021–2040, focusing on five priority areas, with a focus on tokamak family reactors:


title: Fusion power

text: In a plasma that is embedded in a magnetic field (known as a magnetized plasma) the fusion rate scales as the magnetic field strength to the 4th power. For this reason, many fusion companies that rely on magnetic fields to control their plasma are trying to develop high temperature superconducting devices. In 2021, SuperOx, a Russian and Japanese company, developed a new manufacturing process for making superconducting YBCO wire for fusion reactors. This new wire was shown to conduct between 700 and 2000 Amps per square millimeter. The company was able to produce 186 miles of wire in nine months.


title: Fusion power

text: Even on smaller production scales, the containment apparatus is blasted with matter and energy. Designs for plasma containment must consider:


title: Fusion power

text: Depending on the approach, these effects may be higher or lower than fission reactors. One estimate put the radiation at 100 times that of a typical pressurized water reactor. Depending on the approach, other considerations such as electrical conductivity, magnetic permeability, and mechanical strength matter. Materials must also not end up as long-lived radioactive waste.


title: Fusion power

text: For long term use, each atom in the wall is expected to be hit by a neutron and displaced about 100 times before the material is replaced. High-energy neutrons produce hydrogen and helium via nuclear reactions that tend to form bubbles at grain boundaries and result in swelling, blistering or embrittlement.


title: Fusion power

text: Low-Z materials, such as graphite or beryllium are generally preferred to high-Z materials, usually tungsten with molybdenum as a second choice. Liquid metals (lithium, gallium, tin) have been proposed, e.g., by injection of 1–5 mm thick streams flowing at 10 m/s on solid substrates.


title: Fusion power

text: Graphite features a gross erosion rate due to physical and chemical sputtering amounting to many meters per year, requiring redeposition of the sputtered material. The redeposition site generally does not exactly match the sputter site, allowing net erosion that may be prohibitive. An even larger problem is that tritium is redeposited with the redeposited graphite. The tritium inventory in the wall and dust could build up to many kilograms, representing a waste of resources and a radiological hazard in case of an accident. Graphite found favor as material for short-lived experiments, but appears unlikely to become the primary plasma-facing material (PFM) in a commercial reactor.


title: Fusion power

text: Tungsten's sputtering rate is orders of magnitude smaller than carbon's, and tritium is much less incorporated into redeposited tungsten. However, tungsten plasma impurities are much more damaging than carbon impurities, and self-sputtering can be high, requiring the plasma in contact with the tungsten not be too hot (a few tens of eV rather than hundreds of eV). Tungsten also has issues around eddy currents and melting in off-normal events, as well as some radiological issues.


title: Fusion power

text: Accident potential and effect on the environment are critical to social acceptance of nuclear fusion, also known as a social license. Fusion reactors are not subject to catastrophic meltdown. It requires precise and controlled temperature, pressure and magnetic field parameters to produce net energy, and any damage or loss of required control would rapidly quench the reaction. Fusion reactors operate with seconds or even microseconds worth of fuel at any moment. Without active refueling, the reactions immediately quench.


title: Fusion power

text: The same constraints prevent runaway reactions. Although the plasma is expected to have a volume of or more, the plasma typically contains only a few grams of fuel. By comparison, a fission reactor is typically loaded with enough fuel for months or years, and no additional fuel is necessary to continue the reaction. This large fuel supply is what offers the possibility of a meltdown.


title: Fusion power

text: In magnetic containment, strong fields develop in coils that are mechanically held in place by the reactor structure. Failure of this structure could release this tension and allow the magnet to "explode" outward. The severity of this event would be similar to other industrial accidents or an MRI machine quench/explosion, and could be effectively contained within a containment building similar to those used in fission reactors.


title: Fusion power

text: In laser-driven inertial containment the larger size of the reaction chamber reduces the stress on materials. Although failure of the reaction chamber is possible, stopping fuel delivery prevents catastrophic failure.


title: Fusion power

text: Most reactor designs rely on liquid hydrogen as a coolant and to convert stray neutrons into tritium, which is fed back into the reactor as fuel. Hydrogen is flammable, and it is possible that hydrogen stored on-site could ignite. In this case, the tritium fraction of the hydrogen would enter the atmosphere, posing a radiation risk. Calculations suggest that about of tritium and other radioactive gases in a typical power station would be present. The amount is small enough that it would dilute to legally acceptable limits by the time they reached the station's perimeter fence.


title: Fusion power

text: The likelihood of small industrial accidents, including the local release of radioactivity and injury to staff, are estimated to be minor compared to fission. They would include accidental releases of lithium or tritium or mishandling of radioactive reactor components.


title: Fusion power

text: A magnet quench is an abnormal termination of magnet operation that occurs when part of the superconducting coil exits the superconducting state (becomes normal). This can occur because the field inside the magnet is too large, the rate of change of field is too large (causing eddy currents and resultant heating in the copper support matrix), or a combination of the two.


title: Fusion power

text: More rarely a magnet defect can cause a quench. When this happens, that particular spot is subject to rapid Joule heating from the current, which raises the temperature of the surrounding regions. This pushes those regions into the normal state as well, which leads to more heating in a chain reaction. The entire magnet rapidly becomes normal over several seconds, depending on the size of the superconducting coil. This is accompanied by a loud bang as the energy in the magnetic field is converted to heat, and the cryogenic fluid boils away. The abrupt decrease of current can result in kilovolt inductive voltage spikes and arcing. Permanent damage to the magnet is rare, but components can be damaged by localized heating, high voltages, or large mechanical forces.


title: Fusion power

text: In practice, magnets usually have safety devices to stop or limit the current when a quench is detected. If a large magnet undergoes a quench, the inert vapor formed by the evaporating cryogenic fluid can present a significant asphyxiation hazard to operators by displacing breathable air.


title: Fusion power

text: A large section of the superconducting magnets in CERN's Large Hadron Collider unexpectedly quenched during start-up operations in 2008, destroying multiple magnets. In order to prevent a recurrence, the LHC's superconducting magnets are equipped with fast-ramping heaters that are activated when a quench event is detected. The dipole bending magnets are connected in series. Each power circuit includes 154 individual magnets, and should a quench event occur, the entire combined stored energy of these magnets must be dumped at once. This energy is transferred into massive blocks of metal that heat up to several hundred degrees Celsius—because of resistive heating—in seconds. A magnet quench is a "fairly routine event" during the operation of a particle accelerator.


title: Fusion power

text: The natural product of the fusion reaction is a small amount of helium, which is harmless to life. Hazardous tritium is difficult to retain completely. During normal operation, tritium is continually released.


title: Fusion power

text: Although tritium is volatile and biologically active, the health risk posed by a release is much lower than that of most radioactive contaminants, because of tritium's short half-life (12.32 years) and very low decay energy (~14.95 keV), and because it does not bioaccumulate (it cycles out of the body as water, with a biological half-life of 7 to 14 days). ITER incorporates total containment facilities for tritium.


title: Fusion power

text: Fusion reactors create far less radioactive material than fission reactors. Further, the material it creates is less damaging biologically, and the radioactivity dissipates within a time period that is well within existing engineering capabilities for safe long-term waste storage. In specific terms, except in the case of aneutronic fusion, the neutron flux turns the structural materials radioactive. The amount of radioactive material at shut-down may be comparable to that of a fission reactor, with important differences. The half-lives of fusion and neutron activation radioisotopes tend to be less than those from fission, so that the hazard decreases more rapidly. Whereas fission reactors produce waste that remains radioactive for thousands of years, the radioactive material in a fusion reactor (other than tritium) would be the reactor core itself and most of this would be radioactive for about 50 years, with other low-level waste being radioactive for another 100 years or so thereafter. The fusion waste's short half-life eliminates the challenge of long-term storage. By 500 years, the material would have the same radiotoxicity as coal ash.


title: Fusion power

text: Nonetheless, classification as intermediate level waste rather than low-level waste may complicate safety discussions.


title: Fusion power

text: The choice of materials is less constrained than in conventional fission, where many materials are required for their specific neutron cross-sections. Fusion reactors can be designed using "low activation", materials that do not easily become radioactive. Vanadium, for example, becomes much less radioactive than stainless steel. Carbon fiber materials are also low-activation, are strong and light, and are promising for laser-inertial reactors where a magnetic field is not required.


title: Fusion power

text: Fusion power technology could be adapted to produce materials for military purposes in some scenarios. A huge amount of tritium could be produced by a fusion power station; tritium is used in the trigger of hydrogen bombs and in modern boosted fission weapons, but it can be produced in other ways. The energetic neutrons from a fusion reactor could be used to breed weapons-grade plutonium or uranium for an atomic bomb (for example by transmutation of to , or to ).


title: Fusion power

text: Another study concluded "...large fusion reactors—even if not designed for fissile material breeding—could easily produce several hundred kg Pu per year with high weapon quality and very low source material requirements." It was emphasized that the implementation of features for intrinsic proliferation resistance might only be possible at an early phase of research and development. The theoretical and computational tools needed for hydrogen bomb design are closely related to those needed for inertial confinement fusion, but have very little in common with magnetic confinement fusion.


title: Fusion power

text: Fusion power commonly proposes the use of deuterium as fuel and many current designs also use lithium. Assuming a fusion energy output equal to the 1995 global power output of about 100 EJ/yr (= 1 × 10 J/yr) and that this does not increase in the future, which is unlikely, then known current lithium reserves would last 3000 years. Lithium from sea water would last 60 million years, however, and a more complicated fusion process using only deuterium would have fuel for 150 billion years. To put this in context, 150 billion years is close to 30 times the remaining lifespan of the Sun, and more than 10 times the estimated age of the universe.


title: Fusion power

text: The EU spent almost through the 1990s. ITER represents an investment of over twenty billion dollars, and possibly tens of billions more, including in kind contributions. Under the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme, nuclear fusion research received (in addition to ITER funding), compared with for sustainable energy research, putting research into fusion power well ahead of that of any single rival technology. The United States Department of Energy has allocated $US367M–$US671M every year since 2010, peaking in 2020, with plans to reduce investment to $US425M in its FY2021 Budget Request. About a quarter of this budget is directed to support ITER.


title: Fusion power

text: The size of the investments and time lines results mean that fusion research has almost exclusively been publicly funded. However, in recent years, the promise of commercializing a paradigm-changing low-carbon energy source has attracted a raft of companies and investors. Over two dozen start-up companies attracted over one billion dollars from roughly 2000 to 2020, mainly from 2015, and a further three billion in funding and milestone related commitments in 2021, with investors including Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel and Bill Gates, as well as institutional investors including Legal & General, and energy companies including Equinor, Eni, Chevron, and the Chinese ENN Group. Recently, private fusion companies have attracted investment in the billions of dollars. For example, in 2021, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) obtained $1.8 billion in scale-up funding, and Helion Energy obtained a half-billion dollars with an additional $1.7 billion contingent on meeting milestones.


title: Fusion power

text: Scenarios developed in the 2000s and early 2010s discussed the effects of the commercialization of fusion power on the future of human civilization. Using nuclear fission as a guide, these saw ITER and later DEMO as bringing online the first commercial reactors around 2050 and a rapid expansion after mid-century. Some scenarios emphasized 'fusion nuclear science facilities' as a step beyond ITER. However, the economic obstacles to tokamak-based fusion power remain immense, requiring investment to fund prototype tokamak reactors and development of new supply chains. Tokamak designs appear to be labour-intensive, while the commercialization risk of alternatives like inertial fusion energy is high due to the lack of government resources.


title: Fusion power

text: Scenarios since 2010 note computing and material science advances enabling multi-phase national or cost-sharing 'Fusion Pilot Plants' (FPPs) along various technology pathways, such as the UK Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production, within the 2030–2040 time frame. Notably, in June 2021, General Fusion announced it would accept the UK government's offer to host the world's first substantial public-private partnership fusion demonstration plant, at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. The plant will be constructed from 2022 to 2025 and is intended to lead the way for commercial pilot plants in the late 2025s. The plant will be 70% of full scale and is expected to attain a stable plasma of 150 million degrees. In the United States, cost-sharing public-private partnership FPPs appear likely. Compact reactor technology based on such demonstration plants may enable commercialization via a fleet approach from the 2030s if early markets can be located.


title: Fusion power

text: The widespread adoption of non-nuclear renewable energy has transformed the energy landscape. Such renewables are projected to supply 74% of global energy by 2050. The steady fall of renewable energy prices challenges the economic competitiveness of fusion power.


title: Fusion power

text: Some economists suggest fusion power is unlikely to match other renewable energy costs. Fusion plants are expected to face large start up and capital costs. Moreover, operation and maintenance are likely to be costly. While the costs of the CFETR are not well known, an EU DEMO fusion concept was projected to feature a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of $121/MWh.


title: Fusion power

text: Furthermore, economists suggest that fusion energy cost increases by $16.5/ MWh for every $1 billion increase in the price of fusion technology. This high Levelized cost of energy is largely a result of construction costs.


title: Fusion power

text: In contrast, renewable levelized cost of energy estimates are substantially lower. For instance, the 2019 levelized cost of energy of solar energy was estimated to be $40-$46/MWh, on shore wind was estimated at $29-$56/MWh, and offshore wind was approximately $92/MWh.


title: Fusion power

text: However, fusion power may still have a role filling energy gaps left by renewables, depending on how administration priorities for energy and environmental justice influence the market. In the 2020s, socioeconomic studies of fusion that began to consider these factors emerged, and in 2022 EUROFusion launched its Socio-Economic Studies and Prospective Research and Development strands to investigate how such factors might affect commercialization pathways and timetables. Thus, fusion power may work in tandem with other renewable energy sources rather than becoming the primary energy source. In some applications, fusion power could provide the base load, especially if including integrated thermal storage and cogeneration and considering the potential for retrofitting coal plants.


title: Fusion power

text: As fusion pilot plants move within reach, legal and regulatory issues must be addressed. In September 2020, the United States National Academy of Sciences consulted with private fusion companies to consider a national pilot plant. The following month, the United States Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Fusion Industry Association co-hosted a public forum to begin the process. In November 2020, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began working with various nations to create safety standards such as dose regulations and radioactive waste handling. In January and March 2021, NRC hosted two public meetings on regulatory frameworks. A public-private cost-sharing approach was endorsed in the 27 December H.R.133 Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, which authorized $325 million over five years for a partnership program to build fusion demonstration facilities, with a 100% match from private industry. Subsequently, the UK Regulatory Horizons Council published a report calling for a fusion regulatory framework by early 2022 in order to position the UK as a global leader in commercializing fusion power. This call was met by the UK government publishing in October 2021 both its "Fusion Green Paper" and its "Fusion Strategy", to regulate and commercialize fusion, respectively.


title: Fusion power

text: Given the potential of fusion to transform the world's energy industry and mitigate climate change, fusion science has traditionally been seen as an integral part of peace-building science diplomacy. However, technological developments and private sector involvement has raised concerns over intellectual property, regulatory administration, global leadership; equity, and potential weaponization. These challenge ITER's peace-building role and led to calls for a global commission. Fusion power significantly contributing to climate change by 2050 seems unlikely without substantial breakthroughs and a space race mentality emerging, but a contribution by 2100 appears possible, with the extent depending on the type and particularly cost of technology pathways.


title: Fusion power

text: Developments from late 2020 onwards have led to talk of a "new space race" with multiple entrants, pitting the US against China and the UK's STEP FPP. On 24 September, the United States House of Representatives approved a research and commercialization program. The Fusion Energy Research section incorporated a milestone-based, cost-sharing, public-private partnership program modeled on NASA's COTS program, which launched the commercial space industry. In February 2021, the National Academies published "Bringing Fusion to the U.S. Grid", recommending a market-driven, cost-sharing plant for 2035–2040, and the launch of the Congressional Bipartisan Fusion Caucus followed.


title: Fusion power

text: In December 2020, an independent expert panel reviewed EUROfusion's design and R&D work on DEMO, and EUROfusion confirmed it was proceeding with its Roadmap to Fusion Energy, beginning the conceptual design of DEMO in partnership with the European fusion community, suggesting an EU-backed machine had entered the race.


title: Fusion power

text: Fusion power promises to provide more energy for a given weight of fuel than any fuel-consuming energy source currently in use. The fuel (primarily deuterium) exists abundantly in the ocean: about 1 in 6500 hydrogen atoms in seawater is deuterium.


title: Fusion power

text: Although this is only about 0.015%, seawater is plentiful and easy to access, implying that fusion could supply the world's energy needs for millions of years.


title: Fusion power

text: First generation fusion plants are expected to use the deuterium-tritium fuel cycle. This will require the use of lithium for breeding of the tritium. It is not known for how long global lithium supplies will suffice to supply this need as well as those of the battery and metallurgical industries. It is expected that second generation plants will move on to the more formidable deuterium-deuterium reaction. The deuterium-helium-3 reaction is also of interest, but the light helium isotope is practically non-existent on Earth. It is thought to exist in useful quantities in the lunar regolith, and is abundant in the atmospheres of the gas giant planets.


title: Fusion power

text: Fusion power could be used for so-called 'deep space' propulsion within the solar system and for interstellar space exploration where solar energy is not available, including via antimatter-fusion hybrid drives.


title: Fusion power

text: The history of fusion power began early in the 20th century as an inquiry into how stars powered themselves and expanded to incorporate a broad inquiry into the nature of matter and energy, while potential applications expanded to include warfare, rocket propulsion, and energy production. Unfortunately, generating electricity from fusion has been forecast to be 30 years in the future for the last 50 years and may still be that far off.


title: Fusion power

text: The history is a convoluted mixture of investigations into nuclear physics and a parallel exploration of engineering challenges ranging from identifying appropriate materials and fuels, to improving heating and confinement techniques.


title: Fusion power

text: The quest for fusion power has proceeded along multiple trajectories since the outset. Trajectories such as pinch designs fell away as they confronted obstacles that have yet to be surmounted. The survivors include magnetic confinement approaches such as tokamak and stellarator, along with ICF devices approaches such as laser and electrostatic confinement.


title: Fusion power

text: The first successful man-made fusion device was the boosted fission weapon tested in 1951 in the Greenhouse Item test. The first true fusion weapon was 1952's Ivy Mike, and the first practical example was 1954's Castle Bravo.


title: Fusion power

text: The stellarator was the first candidate, preceding the better-known tokamak. It was pioneered by Lyman Spitzer. While fusion did not immediately transpire, the effort led to the creation of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.


title: Fusion power

text: The first experiment to achieve controlled thermonuclear fusion was accomplished using Scylla I at LANL in 1958. Scylla I was a θ-pinch machine, with a cylinder full of deuterium.


title: Fusion power

text: The concept of the tokamak originated in 1950–1951 from I.E. Tamm and A.D. Sakharov in the Soviet Union. The tokamak essentially combined a low-power pinch device with a low-power stellarator.


title: Fusion power

text: A.D. Sakharov's group constructed the first tokamaks, achieving the first quasistationary fusion reaction.


title: Fusion power

text: Laser fusion was suggested in 1962 by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), shortly after the invention of the laser in 1960. Inertial confinement fusion (using lasers) research began as early as 1965.


title: Fusion power

text: Several laser systems were built at LLNL. These included the Argus, the Cyclops, the Janus, the long path, the Shiva laser, and the Nova.


title: Fusion power

text: Laser advances included frequency-tripling crystals that transformed infrared laser beams into ultraviolet beams and "chirping", which changed a single wavelength into a full spectrum that could be amplified and then reconstituted into one frequency. Laser research ate money as well, consuming over one billion dollars in the 1980s.


title: Fusion power

text: Over time the "advanced tokamak" concept emerged, which included non-circular plasma, internal diverters and limiters, superconducting magnets, operation in the so-called "H-mode" island of increased stability, and the compact tokamak, with the magnets on the inside of the vacuum chamber.


title: Fusion power

text: The Tore Supra, JET, T-15, and JT-60 tokamaks were built in the 1980s. In 1984, Martin Peng of ORNL proposed the spherical tokamak with a much smaller radius. It used a single large conductor in the center, with magnets as half-rings off of this conductor. The aspect ratio fell to as low as 1.2. Peng's advocacy caught the interest of Derek Robinson, who built the Small Tight Aspect Ratio Tokamak, (START).


title: Fusion power

text: In 1991, the Preliminary Tritium Experiment at the Joint European Torus achieved the world's first controlled release of fusion power.


title: Fusion power

text: In 1996, Tore Supra created a plasma for two minutes with a current of almost 1 million amperes, totaling 280 MJ of injected and extracted energy.


title: Fusion power

text: In 1997, JET produced a peak of 16.1 MW of fusion power (65% of heat to plasma,) with fusion power of over 10 MW sustained for over 0.5 sec.


title: Fusion power

text: In 2006, China's EAST test reactor was completed. It was the first tokamak to use superconducting magnets to generate both toroidal and poloidal fields.


title: Fusion power

text: In the 2000s, privately backed fusion companies entered the race, including Tri Alpha Energy, General Fusion, and Tokamak Energy.


title: Fusion power

text: Private and public research accelerated in the 2010s. General Fusion developed plasma injector technology and Tri Alpha Energy tested its C-2U device. The French Laser Mégajoule began operation. NIF achieved net energy gain in 2013, as defined in the very limited sense as the hot spot at the core of the collapsed target, rather than the whole target.


title: Fusion power

text: In 2014, Phoenix Nuclear Labs sold a high-yield neutron generator that could sustain 5×10 deuterium fusion reactions per second over a 24-hour period.


title: Fusion power

text: In 2015, MIT announced a tokamak it named the ARC fusion reactor, using rare-earth barium-copper oxide (REBCO) superconducting tapes to produce high-magnetic field coils that it claimed could produce comparable magnetic field strength in a smaller configuration than other designs. In October, researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics completed building the largest stellarator to date, the Wendelstein 7-X. It soon produced helium and hydrogen plasmas lasting up to 30 minutes.


title: Fusion power

text: In 2017, Helion Energy's fifth-generation plasma machine went into operation. The UK's Tokamak Energy's ST40 generated "first plasma". The next year, Eni announced a $50 million investment in Commonwealth Fusion Systems, to attempt to commercialize MIT's ARC technology.


title: Fusion power

text: In January 2021, SuperOx announced the commercialization of a new superconducting wire with more than 700 A/mm current capability.


title: Fusion power

text: TAE Technologies announced results for its Norman device, holding a temperature of about 60 MK for 30 milliseconds, 8 and 10 times higher, respectively, than the company's previous devices.


title: Fusion power

text: In October, Oxford-based First Light Fusion revealed its projectile fusion project, which fires an aluminum disc at a fusion target, accelerated by a 9 mega-amp electrical pulse, reaching speeds of . The resulting fusion generates neutrons whose energy is captured as heat.


title: Fusion power

text: On November 8, in an invited talk to the 63rd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, the National Ignition Facility claimed to have triggered fusion ignition in the laboratory on August 8, 2021, for the first time in the 60+ year history of the ICF program. The shot yielded 1.3 MJ of fusion energy, an over 8X improvement on tests done in spring of 2021. NIF estimates that 230 kJ of energy reached the fuel capsule, which resulted in an almost 6-fold energy output from the capsule. A researcher from Imperial College London stated that the majority of the field agreed that ignition had been demonstrated.


title: Fusion power

text: In November 2021, Helion Energy reported receiving $0.5 billion in Series E funding for its seventh-generation Polaris device, designed to demonstrate net electricity production, with an additional $1.7 billion of commitments tied to specific milestones, while Commonwealth Fusion Systems raised an additional $1.8 billion in Series B funding to construct and operate its SPARC reactor, the single largest investment in any private fusion company.


title: Fusion power

text: In April 2022, First Light announced that their hypersonic projectile fusion prototype had produced neutrons compatible with fusion. Their technique electromagnetically fires projectiles at Mach 19 at a caged fuel pellet. The deuterium fuel is compressed at Mach 204, reaching pressure levels of 100 TPa.


title: Fusion power

text: On December 13, 2022, the US Department of Energy reported that researchers at the National Ignition Facility had achieved a net energy gain from a fusion reaction. The reaction of hydrogen fuel at the facility produced about 3.15 MJ of energy while consuming 2.05 MJ of input. However, while the fusion reactions may have produced more than 3 megajoules of energy—more than was delivered to the target—NIF’s 192 lasers consumed 322 megajoules of grid energy in the conversion process.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is an action role-playing first-person shooter video game developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K. As a spin-off in the "Borderlands" series and a sequel to "Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep", the game is set within the world of a fantasy-themed tabletop role-playing game. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in March 2022.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: Similar to its predecessors, the game is a first-person shooter with elements of an action role-playing game. The game can be played solo or with up to three other players in online or local split-screen multiplayer. The game is set within the world of a fantasy-themed tabletop role-playing game. The game features an overworld, which is used by the playable characters to traverse the various locations in the game. There are random combat encounters and quests that can only be completed in the overworld.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands" builds upon the standards set by the "Borderlands" franchise that it originated from while also differing in several key aspects. In terms of the characters themselves rather than playing as a specific vault hunter, with their own personality and voice lines, players instead play as a custom made character using the games character creator system. The game features six different character classes, and for the first time in the series, players can mix and match these skills for their characters. The playable avatars have stats that can be upgraded using "hero points". Players have a large arsenal of weapons and firearms at their disposal, and for the first time in the series, players can wield melee weapons. The game features the same procedurally generated loot system from the "Borderlands" series that is capable of generating numerous combinations of weapons and other gear. The game also features new types of gear for the players to use to improve their strength. Melee weapons have their own 5th weapon slot to encourage the player to fight up close. Grenades, which have been a franchise staple, have been replaced with a spell slot on a cooldown. Players can cast spells such as summoning meteors, or transforming enemies into sheep. Lastly in terms of new equipment are two ring slots, and an amulet slot to further increase the power of the character.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: After completing the main campaign, players will unlock an infinite dungeon mode known as Chaos Chamber. Each Chaos Chamber consists of six levels and includes two boss characters. The combination of enemies and bosses is randomly selected by the game. After completing each level, they will gain access to a portal which would grant the player additional perks or combat advantages, or "curses" that hinder their combat abilities. Boss characters will drop legendary weapons, and players can also spend crystals to unlock extra loots.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: Set after "Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep", the campaign is set within the world of a fantasy-themed tabletop role-playing game named "Bunkers & Badasses". Tiny Tina (Ashly Burch) is its dungeon master and can change the game's world on the fly.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: The story starts with Valentine (Andy Samberg), Frette (Wanda Sykes), and the player, known as The Newbie, about to defeat the Dragon Lord (Will Arnett). The Dragon Lord uses his magic to raise the undead, but is stopped by Butt Stallion, wielding the Sword of Souls. The Dragon Lord is imprisoned for centuries, and the game begins anew, this time with the Newbie being "The Fatemaker". The Fatemaker goes through the starting area with the help of Butt Stallion as their guide. They are stopped by a gang of skeletons and their leader, who has plans to awaken the Dragon Lord, who was banished in a crypt hidden in a dungeon. Despite defeating the skeleton leader, the Dragon Lord is awakened, and disappears.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: The player goes to Brighthoof, which is under siege by skeletons brought by the Dragon Lord. After defeating the skeleton army, the Player is tasked by Queen Butt Stallion to retrieve the Sword of Souls from the nearby graveyard. After recovering the Sword and charging it up with the soul of The Dragon Lord’s poltergeist ally, the Player returns to Brighthoof and places the sword into the central fountain, repairing the town. For their efforts, the Queen decides to make the Player an official Knight of Brighthoof. Before she is able to, the Dragon Lord appears and steals the Sword of Souls, using it to decapitate Queen Butt Stallion. He disappears, taking the Sword and Queen Butt Stallion’s head back to his base, The Fear-amid. The Player is tasked to cross the ocean on a ship and stop the Dragon Lord, before he uses the Sword’s power to destroy the Wonderlands. Before they can cross, the Player is told to get their boat blessed by a bard or risk getting killed by an ocean monster. After finding a bard (Chris Rager), he dispels the bad vibes surrounding the player (Valentine and Frette’s arguing over how to play the game). Unfortunately, the spell works too well and instead destroys the ocean, forcing the Player to cross on foot instead.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: While crossing, the Dragon Lord secretly talks to the Player, revealing that he is fully aware that Wonderlands is just a game. He further reveals that he plans to harvest a massive amount of soul energy to use the Sword of Souls to sever Tina’s control over the Wonderlands, as he views her as insecure and quick to anger. Before entering the Fear-amid, the Dragon Lord shows the Player his backstory. He was originally Tina’s personal character when she was first introduced to Bunkers and Badasses by Roland (Markus Lloyd). However, after she improperly used the Sword of Souls to wipe out all evil, this caused her character to turn evil, which angered Tina. She swore to only play as Bunker Master from then on, creating a world where only heroes win and the Dragon Lord, as a reoccurring villain, always loses. When the Dragon Lord realized his actions weren’t his own, he swore vengeance on Tina.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: After entering the Fear-amid and defeating the Dragon Lord, the Player is encouraged by Tina, Valentine, and Frette to use the Sword of Souls improperly again. However, the Player uses the Sword to revive Queen Butt Stallion, and neutralize the Dragon Lord instead of killing him. Valentine, Frette and the Newbie had so much fun playing Tina’s adventure that they decide to continue playing. The Player is made an official Knight of Brighthoof, while the Dragon Lord is sentenced to 200 years of imprisonment for his crimes.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands" was developed by Gearbox Software with support from Lost Boys Interactive. According to Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford, the studio has been planning to release a fantasy spin-off of the series since the early 2010s, and it had unsuccessfully pitched several fantasy projects to publishers during the early days of the studio. The game's overworld system was inspired by Japanese role-playing games such as the "Final Fantasy" series. Gearbox intentionally designed five maps that can only be accessed through the overworld. These maps feature their own narrative threads that are also connected to the main story. Ashly Burch returned to provide her voice for Tiny Tina, while Andy Samberg, Will Arnett and Wanda Sykes portrayed other main characters in the game.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: Despite Embracer Group's acquisition of Gearbox Software in 2020, the studio continued to partner with series publisher 2K Games. The game was officially announced by 2K on June 10, 2021. It was released on March 25, 2022 for Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and Series S. The PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions will include the Dragon Lord Pack downloadable content. Players who pre-ordered the game would gain access to the Golden Hero Armor Pack. "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands" is the first game in the "Borderlands" franchise to feature full crossplay between PlayStation, Xbox, and PC; 2019's "Borderlands 3" also features crossplay, but the feature was initially limited in terms of platforms that could play together, although these limitations were addressed in an update that the game received after the release of "Wonderlands".


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: Ahead of "Wonderlands"s release, Gearbox made the "Borderlands 2" DLC "Assault on Dragon Keep" available as a standalone game "Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep: A Wonderlands One-Shot Adventure", released on November 8, 2021 for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: Gearbox revealed a brief synopsis of season pass one in March 2022. Players can expect a new endgame content named the Mirrors of Mystery featuring constantly increasing difficulty on repeat playthroughs. The first "Mirror of Mystery", "Coiled Captors", was released on April 20, 2022. It received an underwhelming response from players, who compared it unfavourably to other DLC packs in the "Borderlands" franchise. The second pack, titled "Glutton's Gamble", was released on May 20, 2022. The pack features a new villain known as the Sand Witch, whose powers are culinary-themed. The third DLC, "Molten Mirrors", was released on June 21, 2022. The fourth DLC, titled "Shattering Spyglass", introduced a new character class known as the Blightcaller, who was described by Gearbox as an "elementalist" who "wields the noxious essence of swamps with potent precision". The DLC pack was released on August 14, 2022.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands" received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Reviewers praised the game's new dynamic environments, gameplay, humor and voice acting but felt that many of the problems present in "Borderlands 3" were also present in this game.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: "EGM" criticized the game's meaningless reward system, lack of resemblance to an actual tabletop role-playing experience, and quality of life issues, but commended the build customization and fantastical subclasses, claiming that "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands" had "...the best FPS action in the series so far." "Game Informer" wrote highly of the game, praising the voice acting, dialogue, story scenarios, flow, humor, fantasy elements, and gunplay, stating, ""Tiny Tina's Wonderlands" is Gearbox Software's best game." "GameSpot" praised the fantasy environments, gameplay variety, and the Chaos Chamber mode while lamenting its tonally disjointed key moments, overabundance of exposition, UI, and quest structure. While "GamesRadar+" lauded the cast, humor, and gunplay, they criticized the game's repetitive nature and its inability to retain the player's engagement. "Hardcore Gamer" stated that the "Wonderlands" humor was a marked improvement over that of "Borderlands 3" and heavily praised the ability to combine classes. "IGN" noted that while the game's premise felt safe, it still had excellent writing and voice acting, writing, "The excellent laugh-out-loud writing is elevated by one of the strongest comedy casts of any game." "PC Gamer" similarly praised the game's tone and comedy while acknowledging that the quality of the game was a result of how the "Borderlands" formula had been honed over the years. "PCGamesN" gave the game an 8 out of 10, writing, "Still recognisably "Borderlands", but the sense of place and improvisation elevates "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands" beyond expectations. The overworld map feels tacked-on, but Gearbox commits to the bit in every other aspect." "Shacknews" found merit in the game's character building options, humor, art style, and usage of "Dungeons & Dragons" tropes and mechanics.


title: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

text: The PlayStation 4 version of "Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands" sold 5,427 copies within its first week of release in Japan, making it the fourteenth bestselling retail game of the week in the country. The PlayStation 5 version sold 2,835 copies in Japan throughout the same week, making it the twenty-sixth bestselling retail game of the week in the country. "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands" was the second-best-selling retail video game in the United Kingdom in its week of release, according to Chart-Track. 77% of the game's launch sales in the UK, however, were digital. It was the 11th best-selling game in the US in March 2022 by dollar sales. In May 2022, Take-Two Interactive revealed that the sales of "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands" had exceeded the publisher's expectations.


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: The Messi–Ronaldo rivalry, or Ronaldo–Messi rivalry, is a sporting rivalry in football encouraged by the media and fans that involves Argentine footballer Lionel Messi and Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, mainly for being contemporaries and for their similar records and sporting success. The two spent nine seasons in the prime of their careers facing off regularly while playing for rival clubs Barcelona and Real Madrid.


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: Together they have achieved various historical milestones in the sport, coming to be considered as two of the best players of all time. They are two of the most decorated footballers ever, having won a combined 71 major trophies (Messi 37, Ronaldo 34) during their senior careers thus far, and have regularly broken the 50-goal barrier in a single season. They are among the eight players to score over 700 goals each in their careers for club and country. Ronaldo holds the record for most official goals in a career.


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: Journalists and pundits regularly argue the individual merits of both players in an attempt to establish who they believe is the best player in modern football or ever. Regardless of preference, football critics generally agree that they are both the best players of their generation, outshining their peers by a significant margin. Ronaldo has received praise for his physical attributes, goalscoring skills, leadership and performance under pressure, while Messi is lauded for his combination of dribbling, playmaking, passing and goalscoring. It has been compared to past global sports rivalries such as the Muhammad Ali–Joe Frazier rivalry in boxing, the Prost–Senna rivalry in motorsport, and the tennis rivalries between Federer–Nadal and Borg–McEnroe. Some commentators choose to analyse the differing physiques and playing styles of the two, while part of the debate revolves around the contrasting personalities of the two players; Ronaldo is sometimes described as someone of temperamental character while Messi is considered to have a more reserved character.


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: After winning the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Messi has, in the eyes of many, won the ongoing rivalry between the two players.


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: In 2007, Ronaldo and Messi finished as runners-up to A.C. Milan's Kaká in both the Ballon d'Or, an award rewarded to the player voted as the best in the world by an international panel of sports journalists; and the FIFA World Player of the Year, an award voted for by coaches and captains of international teams. In an interview that year, Messi was quoted as saying that "Cristiano Ronaldo is an extraordinary player and it would be brilliant to be in the same team as him."


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: They first played in a game against each other when Manchester United were drawn to play Barcelona in the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League semi-finals and were immediately pitted as major rivals. Ronaldo missed a penalty in the first leg, but United eventually advanced to the final via a Paul Scholes goal. At the end of the year, Ronaldo was awarded the Ballon d'Or and vowed that he would win the award again.


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: The 2009 UEFA Champions League Final was contested between Manchester United and Barcelona on 27 May 2009 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy. The match, described as a "dream clash", was again hyped as the latest battle between the two, this time to settle who was the best player in the world; Ronaldo claimed he was the better of the two, while Messi's club-mate Xavi sided with him. Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson was more diplomatic, praising both players as being amongst the world's elite talents. Messi, playing in a central role he was unaccustomed to so he would avoid a direct battle with Manchester United left-back Patrice Evra, scored Barcelona's second in a 2–0 victory with a header in the 70th minute. Meanwhile, Ronaldo was subdued for much of the game, despite some early chances to score, and his frustration eventually showed when he was booked for a rash tackle on Carles Puyol.


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: From 2009 to 2018, the two played against each other at least twice per season during El Clásico matches but also met many other times in competitions such as the Copa del Rey, the Supercopa de España, and, a two-legged Champions League semi-final in 2011.


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: In a 2016 interview, Ronaldo commented on the rivalry by saying: "I think we push each other sometimes in the competition, this is why the competition is so high." Alex Ferguson, Ronaldo's manager during his time at Manchester United, opined: "I don't think the rivalry against each other bothers them. I think they have their own personal pride in terms of wanting to be the best." Messi has denied any rivalry, and blames the media for creating it, stating that "only the media, the press, who wants us to be at loggerheads but I've never fought with Cristiano."


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: It is widely argued and documented that there is an atmosphere of competition between the duo, with Guillem Balagué claiming in the book "Ronaldo" that he refers to his Argentine counterpart as a "motherfucker" behind his back, and Luca Caioli saying in his book "Ronaldo: The Obsession for Perfection" that, according to his sources, Ronaldo heats up when watching Messi play. In response to claims that he and Messi do not get on well on a personal level, Ronaldo commented: "We don't have a relationship outside the world of football, just as we don't with a lot of other players", before adding that in years to come he hopes they can laugh about it together, stating: "We have to look on this rivalry with a positive spirit, because it's a good thing." In November 2014, Ronaldo also threatened to take legal action over the remarks made by Balagué. After Ronaldo's departure from Real Madrid to Juventus, Messi admitted to missing him, saying: "I miss Cristiano. Although it was a bit difficult to see him win trophies, he gave La Liga prestige." During a joint interview at the UEFA Player of the Year ceremony in 2019, Ronaldo said he would like to "have dinner together in the future", to which Messi later replied: "If I get an invitation, why not?"


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: Throughout the existence of the rivalry, the pair have dominated awards ceremonies and broken a multitude of goalscoring records for both club and country, feats which have been described as "incredible", "ridiculous" and "remarkable". The rivalry itself has been described as one about records and reputation of the players, rather than one based in loathing.


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: Messi is the all-time La Liga top scorer, as well as having the most assists in the competition's history – with Ronaldo in second for goals scored and in third for assists provided – while Ronaldo is the UEFA Champions League all-time top goalscorer and assist provider, with Messi in second for goals scored and assists provided in the competition's history. The two had broken each other's record over the course of 2015 after Messi surpassed the previous record holder Raúl in November 2014. Ronaldo opened a gap in the 2015–16 season when he became the first player to score double figures in the group stage of the Champions League, setting the record at 11 goals. They are the first two players to score 100 goals in UEFA Champions League history.


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: They dominated the Ballon d'Or/The Best FIFA Men's Player awards since 2008, and UEFA Men's Player of the Year Award since 2014; in 2018, their longer than a decade triumph was interrupted by Luka Modrić, seen as "the end of an era". In an interview for the "France Football", Modrić stated that "history will say that a Croatian player, representing his small country, won the Ballon d'Or after Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who are players at another level. Nobody has the right to compare themselves to them."


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: Messi won four consecutive Ballon d'Or awards (2009 to 2012), with a fifth coming in 2015, while Ronaldo had equalled Messi's total of five with wins in 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2017. In 2019, Messi took the lead again by earning his sixth Ballon d'Or, finishing just seven points ahead of second-placed Virgil van Dijk, with Ronaldo finishing third. In 2020, the award was canceled due to the Covid-19 and in 2021, Messi won Ballon d'Or for the seventh time. In total, Messi and Ronaldo reached the podium a record thirteen and twelve times respectively. Combining Ballon d'Or, FIFA World Player of the Year and The Best FIFA Men's Player, Messi outperformed Ronaldo 9 to 8 in the first place and 21 to 20 in the podium.


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: Messi won six Pichichi trophies and European Golden Shoe awards (2010, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018 and 2019), while Ronaldo won these prizes four times each (2008, 2011, 2014 and 2015). From 2008 to 2019, Ronaldo was the Champions League top scorer on seven occasions, with Messi achieving this feat six times (including in 2015 when the pair finished joint-top).


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: Collectively, Messi has won a club record 34 major trophies as a Barcelona player, including ten league titles, four Champions Leagues, seven Copa del Rey titles, seven Spanish Super Cups, three European Super Cups, and three FIFA Club World Cups. Messi was runner-up at three Copa Américas and at the 2014 World Cup, before finally claiming his first major international trophy at the 2021 Copa América, where he was named best player. The following year, Messi led Argentina to the 2022 World Cup trophy, where he won his second Golden Ball award.


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: Ronaldo has won 34 major trophies, including seven league titles and five Champions Leagues, and guided Portugal to their first UEFA Euro 2016 and 2019 UEFA Nations League trophies. He has also won four national cups, two league cups, seven national super cups, three European Super Cups, and four FIFA Club World Cups.


title: Messi–Ronaldo rivalry

text: In past years, it had been said that the rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona has been "encapsulated" by the individual rivalry between Ronaldo and Messi, with there never being a goalless "El Clásico" between the two.


title: The Interview

text: The Interview is a 2014 political satire action-comedy film co-produced and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg in their second directorial work, following "This Is the End" (2013). The screenplay was written by Dan Sterling, based on a story he co-wrote with Rogen and Goldberg. The film stars Rogen and James Franco as journalists who set up an interview with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (Randall Park), and are then recruited by the CIA to assassinate him. The film is inspired by a 2012 "Vice" documentary.


title: The Interview

text: Rogen and Goldberg developed the idea for "The Interview" in the late 2000s, with Kim Jong-il as the original assassination target. In 2011, after Jong-il's death and Jong-un's succession as the North Korean leader, Rogen and Goldberg redeveloped the script with the focus on Jong-un's character. "The Interview" was first announced in March 2013, at the beginning of pre-production. Principal photography was in Vancouver from October to December 2013. The film was produced by Columbia Pictures, LStar Capital and Rogen and Goldberg's Point Grey Pictures, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing.


title: The Interview

text: In June 2014, the North Korean government threatened action against the United States if Sony released the film. As a result, Sony delayed the release from October to December and reportedly re-edited the film to make it more acceptable to North Korea. In November, the computer systems of Sony were hacked by the "Guardians of Peace", a North Korean cybercrime group. The group also threatened terrorist attacks against theaters showing the film. This led to major theater chains opting not to release the film, and Sony instead releasing it for online digital rental and purchase on December 25, 2014, followed by a limited release at selected theaters the next day.


title: The Interview

text: In December 2014, South Korean singer Yoon Mi-rae revealed that the film used her song "Pay Day" without permission, and that she was taking legal action. Yoon Mi-rae and her label Feel Ghood Music reached a settlement with Sony Pictures Entertainment on May 13, 2015.


title: The Interview

text: "The Interview" grossed $40 million in digital rentals, making it Sony's most successful digital release and earned an additional $12.3 million worldwide in box office ticket sales on a $44 million budget. It received mixed reviews for its humor and subject matter, although a few critics praised the performances of Rogen, Franco, Park and Diana Bang.


title: The Interview

text: Dave Skylark is the host of the talk show "Skylark Tonight", where he interviews celebrities (including Eminem and Rob Lowe) mainly about personal topics. After Skylark and his crew celebrate producer Aaron Rapaport's 1,000th episode, Rapaport is upset by a producer peer who criticizes the show as not being a real news program. He voices his concern to Skylark, urging change. Skylark agrees and later discovers North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is a fan of their show, prompting Rapaport to arrange an interview for him. Traveling to the outskirts of Dandong, China, to receive instructions from the North Korean chief propagandist Sook-yin Park, Rapaport accepts the interview on behalf of Skylark.


title: The Interview

text: Following Rapaport's return, CIA agent Lacey shows up, requesting they assassinate Kim with a transdermal strip of ricin via handshake to prevent the country from launching a nuclear missile at the West Coast; they reluctantly agree. Skylark carries the strip inside a pack of gum. Upon arrival in Pyongyang, they are greeted by Sook and taken to the palace. They are introduced to Kim's personal security officers Koh and Yu who are immediately suspicious of the duo; when Koh finds the strip, mistaking it for gum and chewing it. After making a secret request for help, Lacey airdrops them two more strips via an UAV, but to get it back to their room, Rapaport has to evade a Siberian tiger and hide the container in his rectum before getting caught by security.


title: The Interview

text: The next day, Skylark meets Kim and spends the day playing basketball, hanging out, riding in his personal tank and partying with escorts. Kim convinces Skylark that he is misunderstood as both a cruel dictator and a failed administrator, and they become friends. At dinner, Koh has a seizure from the ricin poisoning, accidentally shooting Yu before dying. The next morning, Skylark feels guilty, discarding one of the ricin strips and thwarts Rapaport's attempt to poison Kim with the second strip. After a dinner mourning the deaths of the bodyguards, Skylark witnesses Kim's true brutal self as he threatens war against South Korea, the West and everyone who tries to undermine him. Skylark leaves and discovers that a nearby grocery store is fake, realizing Kim has been lying to him. At the same time, during an attempt to seduce Rapaport (who still has the ricin strip on his hand), Sook reveals she despises Kim and apologizes for defending the regime. Skylark returns and tries to get Sook's support to assassinate Kim, but she disagrees, suggesting to instead ruin his cult of personality and show the North Korean people the dire state of the country. The trio secretly devise a plan to expose him on air and arm themselves with guns. Before the broadcast begins, Kim gives Skylark a puppy as a symbol of their friendship.


title: The Interview

text: During the internationally televised interview with Kim, Skylark addresses increasingly sensitive topics (including the country's food shortage and US-imposed economic sanctions) and challenges his need for his father's approval. Meanwhile, Sook and Rapaport take over the control booth to fend off Kim's guards trying to cut off the broadcast. Despite his initial resistance, Kim eventually cries uncontrollably, soiling himself after Skylark sings "Firework" by Katy Perry (knowing of Kim's fondness of her music), ruining his reputation. Enraged at Skylark's betrayal, Kim shoots him and vows to get revenge by launching the nuclear missile. Skylark, whose bulletproof vest saves him, regroups with Rapaport and Sook to escape (alongside the puppy) with the help of a guard. The trio hijacks Kim's tank to get to their pickup point, killing several more guards in the process. Kim chases the group in a helicopter but is shot down and killed by Skylark before he can issue the command to launch the missile.


title: The Interview

text: With the missile launch thwarted, Sook guides Skylark and Rapaport to an escape route, explaining that she has to return to Pyongyang to maintain security. The two are later rescued by SEAL Team Six officers disguised as North Korean soldiers. Back in the US, Skylark writes a book about his experience in North Korea, Rapaport returns to work as a producer (and maintains contact with Sook via Skype), while North Korea becomes a denuclearized democracy with Sook as an interim leader.


title: The Interview

text: The film also features cameo appearances from Eminem, Rob Lowe, Bill Maher, Seth Meyers, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Song Kang-ho, Brian Williams and Scott Pelley. Iggy Azalea, Nicki Minaj, Emma Stone, Zac Efron and Guy Fieri appear in the title graphic card for "Skylark Tonight".


title: The Interview

text: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg developed the idea for "The Interview" in the late 2000s, joking about what would happen if a journalist was required to assassinate a world leader.


title: The Interview

text: Initially, screenwriter Dan Sterling wrote his script involving a fictional dictator from a fictional country, but Rogen, Goldberg and Sony executives asked him to rewrite the script focusing on Kim. The screenplay was then titled "Kill Kim Jong Un". Previous iterations of the story revolved around Kim Jong-il, but put the project on hold until Jong-il died and his son Kim Jong-un assumed power in 2011. Development resumed when Rogen and Goldberg realized that Jong-un is closer to their own age, which they felt would be more humorous. To write the story, co-written with "Daily Show" writer Dan Sterling, they researched meticulously by reading non-fiction books and watching video footage about North Korea. The script was later reviewed by an employee in the State Department. Rogen and Goldberg aimed to make the project more relevant and satirical than their previous films while retaining toilet humor. They were pleased when former NBA star Dennis Rodman visited North Korea, as it reinforced their belief that the premise of the film was realistic.


title: The Interview

text: In March 2013, it was announced that Rogen and Goldberg would direct a comedy film for Columbia Pictures in which Rogen would star alongside James Franco, with Franco playing a talk-show host and Rogen playing his producer. Rogen and Goldberg were on board to produce along with James Weaver through Point Grey Pictures, while Columbia was said to finance the $30 million budgeted film. Lizzy Caplan joined the film's cast in October 2013. Caplan signed on to play Agent Lacey, a CIA agent who tries to get Franco's character to assassinate the Kim Jong-un. Randall Park and Timothy Simons signed on to co-star later that month. Park plays the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Simons the director of the talk show. Park was the first to audition for the role of Kim and got the part immediately. Before filming began, Park gained 15 pounds and shaved his head to resemble Jong-un's crew cut. His role was praised by critics. Although Rogen and Goldberg wrote the character of Kim as "robotic and strict", Park instead played it "sheepish and shy", which they found more humorous. Diana Bang was cast as Sook-yin Park, for which she was well received by critics.


title: The Interview

text: Principal photography on the film began in Vancouver, British Columbia, on October 10, 2013, and concluded on December 20, 2013. There are hundreds of visual effects in the film; a crowd scene at the Pyongyang airport, for example, was digitally manipulated with a shot from "22 Jump Street".


title: The Interview

text: In June 2014, "The Guardian" reported that the film had "touched a nerve" within the North Korean government, as they are "notoriously paranoid about perceived threats to their safety." The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state news agency of North Korea, reported that their government promised "stern" and "merciless" retaliation if the film was released. KCNA said that the release of a film portraying the assassination of the North Korean leader would not be allowed and it would be considered the "most blatant act of terrorism and war". The next month, North Korea's United Nations ambassador Ja Song-nam condemned the film, describing its production and distribution as "an act of war" and because of Kim's assassination in the film, "the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism." "The Guardian" described Song-nam's comments as "perfect publicity for the movie". Later in July, KCNA wrote to U.S. President Barack Obama, asking to have the film pulled. Shortly before the planned release of the film on December 25, 2014, screenwriter Dan Sterling told "Creative Screenwriting:" "I couldn't believe that the most infamous man in the world knew about my script – but most importantly, I would never want something I wrote to lead to some kind of humanitarian disaster. I would be horrified if anyone got hurt over this."


title: The Interview

text: In August 2014, Sony delayed the film's release from October 10 to December 25, 2014. Sony made post-production alterations to the film to modify its portrayal of North Korea, including modifying the designs of buttons worn by characters, originally modeled after real North Korean military buttons praising the country's leaders, and cutting a portion of Kim Jong-un's death scene.


title: The Interview

text: On November 24, 2014, an anonymous group identifying themselves as the "Guardians of Peace" hacked the computer networks of Columbia Pictures's parent company Sony Pictures Entertainment. The hackers leaked internal emails, employee records and several recent and unreleased Sony Pictures films, including "Annie", "Mr. Turner", "Still Alice", and "To Write Love on Her Arms". The North Korean government denied involvement in the hack. On December 8, the hackers leaked further materials, including a demand that Sony pull "the movie of terrorism", widely interpreted as referring to "The Interview".


title: The Interview

text: On December 16, 2014, the hackers threatened to attack the New York premiere of "The Interview" and any cinema showing the film. Two further messages were released on December 1; one, sent in a private message to Sony executives, said that the hackers would not release further information if Sony never released the film and removed it from the internet. The other, posted to Pastebin, a web application used for text storage which the Guardians of Peace had used for previous messages, stated that Sony had "suffered enough" and could release "The Interview", but only if Kim Jong-un's death scene was not "too happy". The message also threatened that if Sony made another film antagonizing North Korea, the hackers "will be here ready to fight".


title: The Interview

text: "The Interview" was not released in Japan, as live-action comedy films do not often perform well in the market. In the Asia-Pacific region, it was released only in Australia and New Zealand.


title: The Interview

text: Rogen predicted that the film would make its way to North Korea, stating that "we were told one of the reasons they're so against the movie is that they're afraid it'll actually get into North Korea. They do have bootlegs and stuff. Maybe the tapes will make their way to North Korea and cause a revolution." "Business Insider" reported via Free North Korea Radio that there was high demand for bootleg copies of the film in North Korea. The South Korean human rights organizations Fighters for a Free North Korea and Human Rights Foundation, largely made up of North Korean defectors, planned to distribute DVD copies of "The Interview" via balloon drops. The groups had previously air-dropped offline copies of the Korean Wikipedia into North Korea on a bootable USB memory device. The balloon drop was scrapped after the North Korean government referred to the plan as a de facto "declaration of war".


title: The Interview

text: The premiere was held in Los Angeles on December 11, 2014. The film scheduled a wide release in the UK and Ireland on February 6, 2015. Following the hackers' threats on December 16, Rogen and Franco canceled scheduled publicity appearances and Sony pulled all television advertising. The National Association of Theatre Owners said that they would not object to cinema owners delaying the film to ensure the safety of filmgoers. Shortly afterwards, the ArcLight and Carmike cinema chains announced that they would not screen the film.


title: The Interview

text: On December 17, Sony canceled the New York City premiere. Later that day, other major theater chains including AMC, Cinemark, Cineplex, Regal, Southern Theatres as well as several independent movie theaters either delayed or canceled screenings of the film, which led to Sony announcing that they were scrapping the wide theatrical release of the film altogether. The chains reportedly came under pressure from shopping malls where many theaters are located, which feared that the terror threat would ruin their holiday sales. They also feared expensive lawsuits in the event of an attack; Cinemark, for instance, contended that it could not have foreseen the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting, which took place at one of its multiplexes, a defense that would not hold in the event of an attack at a screening of "The Interview".


title: The Interview

text: The cancellation also affected other films in which each films' subject matter is North Korea. An Alamo Drafthouse Cinema location in Dallas planned to hold a free screening of "", which satirizes Kim Jong-un's father Kim Jong-il, in place of its previously scheduled screening of "The Interview"; Paramount Pictures refused to permit the screening. New Regency pulled out of a planned film adaptation of the graphic novel "" starring Steve Carell; Carell declared it a "sad day for creative expression".


title: The Interview

text: Sony received criticism for canceling the wide release. "Guardian" film critic Peter Bradshaw wrote that it was an "unprecedented defeat on American turf", but that "North Korea will find that their bullying edict will haunt them." "In the Capital" and Gizmodo suggested the cancellation caused a Streisand effect, whereby the attempt to remove or censor a work has the unintended consequence of publicizing it more widely. In a press conference, U.S. President Barack Obama said that though he was sympathetic to Sony's need to protect employees, he thought Sony had "made a mistake. We cannot have a society in which some dictator in some place can start imposing censorship in the United States. I wish they'd spoken to me first. I would have told them: do not get into the pattern in which you are intimidated."


title: The Interview

text: According to Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, the cancellation of the wide release was a response to the refusal of cinema chains to screen the film, not the hackers' threats, and that Sony would seek other ways to distribute the film. Sony released a statement saying that the company "is and always has been strongly committed to the First Amendment… Free expression should never be suppressed by threats and extortion."


title: The Interview

text: After the wide release cancellation, Sony considered other ways to release the film, citing pressure from the film industry, theater owners, and the White House. On NBC's "Meet the Press" on December 21, Sony's legal counsel David Boies noted that the company was still committed to releasing the film. Sony planned a limited release for December 25, 2014, at more than three hundred American independent and arthouse cinemas. Lynton stated that Sony was trying to show the film to the largest audience by securing as many theaters as they could.


title: The Interview

text: Sony released "The Interview" for rental or purchase in the United States through the streaming services Google Play, Xbox Video, and YouTube on December 24, 2014. It was also available for a limited time on SeeTheInterview.com, a website operated by the stealth startup Kernel.com, which Sony previously worked with to market "The Fifth Wave". Within hours, "The Interview" spread to file sharing websites after a security hole allowed people to download rather than stream the film. TorrentFreak estimated that "The Interview" had been downloaded illegally via torrents at least 1.5 million times in just two days. On December 27, the North Korean National Defence Commission released a statement accusing President Obama of forcing Sony to distribute the film.<ref name="bbc27/12/2014"></ref> The film was released on iTunes on December 28.


title: The Interview

text: In the first week of January 2015, Sony announced "The Interview" would receive a wide theatrical release in the United Kingdom and Ireland on February 6, but it would not be distributed digitally in the UK. The film became available for streaming on Netflix on January 24.


title: The Interview

text: Sony released the film on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on February 17, 2015. The home release was packaged as the "Freedom Edition", and included 90 minutes of deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes featurettes, a blooper reel, feature commentary with directors Rogen and Goldberg, and a special episode of "Naked and Afraid" featuring Rogen and Franco. , the film had earned over $6.7 million in sales in the U.S.


title: The Interview

text: "The Interview" opened to a limited release in the United States on December 25, 2014, across 331 theaters and earned over $1 million on its opening day. "Variety" called the opening gross "an impressive launch for a title playing in only about 300 independent theaters in the U.S." It went on to earn over $1.8 million in its opening weekend, and by the end of its run on January 25, 2015, had grossed $6.1 million at the box office.


title: The Interview

text: Within four days of its online release on December 24, 2014, "The Interview" earned over $15 million through online rentals and purchases. It became Sony Pictures' highest-grossing online release, outselling "Arbitrage" ($14 million), "Bachelorette" ($8.2 million), and "Snowpiercer" ($7 million). It was the top-selling Google Play and YouTube film of 2014. By January 20, 2015, the film had earned more than $40 million from online sales and rentals.


title: The Interview

text: Sony expected "The Interview" to break even through video-on-demand sales and saving millions of dollars on marketing. The National Association of Theatre Owners contended that Sony would lose at least $30 million due to poor box office performance.


title: The Interview

text: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 51% approval rating, based on 154 reviews, with an average rating of 5.70/10. The site's consensus reads: "Unfortunately overshadowed by controversy (and under-screened as a result), "The Interview"s screenplay offers middling laughs bolstered by its two likable leads." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 52 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: The Interview

text: IGN's Roth Cornet wrote that "though it's unlikely to stand out as one of the shrewdest political satires of its time, [it] is a clever, unrestrained and—most importantly—sidesplitting parody that pokes fun at both a vapid media and one of the world's most dangerous dictators." Edward Douglas of ComingSoon.net said the film was "hilarious, but it will probably get us nuked." Jordan Hoffman of "The Guardian" gave the film three out of five stars and wrote that "if this unessential but agreeable movie really triggered an international response, this is life reflecting art in a major way."


title: The Interview

text: Scott Foundas of "Variety" panned the film as "cinematic waterboarding" and "about as funny as a communist food shortage, and just as protracted", but praised the performances of Randall Park and Diana Bang. Mike Hale of "The New York Times" also praised Park and Bang, but wrote that "after seeing "The Interview" and the ruckus its mere existence has caused, the only sensible reaction is amazement at the huge disconnect between the innocuousness of the film and the viciousness of the response."


title: The Interview

text: In the wake of the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack, leaks revealed e-mails between Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton and RAND Corporation defense analyst Bruce Bennett from June 2014. Bennett advised against toning down "The Interview"s graphic Jong-un death scene, in the hope that it would "start some real thinking in South Korea and, I believe, in the North once the DVD leaks into the North". Bennett expressed his view that "the only resolution I can see to the North Korean nuclear and other threats is for the North Korean government to eventually go away", which he felt would be likeliest to occur following an assassination of Kim. Lynton replied that a senior figure in the United States Department of State agreed. Bennett responded that the office of Robert R. King, U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues, had determined that the North Korean statements had been "typical North Korean bullying, likely without follow-up".


title: The Interview

text: In an interview with CNN, Bennett said Lynton sits on the board of trustees of the RAND Corporation, which had asked Bennett to talk to Lynton and give his opinion on the film. Bennett felt "The Interview" was "coarse" and "over the top", but that "the depiction of Kim Jong-un was a picture that needed to get into North Korea. There are a lot of people in prison camps in North Korea who need to take advantage of a change of thinking in the north." Bennett felt that if the DVD were smuggled into the country it might have an effect "over time". Bennett contacted the Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues, a personal friend of his, who "took the standard government approach: we don't tell industry what to do". Jen Psaki, then a spokesperson for the United States Department of State, confirmed that Daniel R. Russel, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, had spoken to Sony executives; she reiterated that "entertainers are free to make movies of their choosing, and we are not involved in that".


title: The Interview

text: Kim Jong-un threatened "merciless" retaliation for his depiction in the film. Seth Rogen responded, "People don't usually wanna kill me for one of my movies until after they've paid 12 bucks for it."