Can Plasma Be Scaled Up? Why "Just Make It Bigger" Doesn't Work

Chat with Greg Fridman · Jun 6, 2026 · 13m

Next in the "Can Plasma?" series: can plasma be scaled up? You built it in the lab, it works beautifully — now turn it into an industrial process. I wrote down 14 reasons that's harder than it sounds.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 The question: can plasma be scaled up?

00:28 Why I wrote down 14 points for this one

00:36 #1 Preserving the plasma regime — from a 2mm jet to a whole strawberry

01:53 #2 Power supply scaling — from a few watts to 100 kilowatts

02:52 The hard x-ray problem (Bremsstrahlung above ~100 kV)

03:13 #3 Uniformity — keeping electrodes parallel across 8 meters within microns

05:07 #4…