system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If one isn't so interested in making fusion an "energy positive" reaction, could one potentially use a fusion reaction to store energy instead?

I know fusion reactions are pretty high energy things, and then whenever we try to contain one, the energy required makes it an energy negative reaction.

However, if one forgoes an interest in making fusion energy positive, could one form an equilibrium with energy in/energy out to turn the fusion reaction into a battery? (A battery that leaks energy, but still "stores" it nonetheless)

My thinking is that if you feed X amount of power into the system, it will produce (X - (w)x) power, where w is the fraction of power that is wasted per unit of input per unit of time, which can be fed back into the input with the option of drawing more power (thereby "shrinking" the reaction) to charge a network of batteries that function as an energy buffer of sorts, which us humans then draw from.

Is there any sense in which fusion could work like this? Like, what can we do with fusion if we lose an interest in making it energy positive?
gpt
It's conceivable. For instance, you could use endothermic fusion reactions to produce uranium-235. Then you've got a cache of ^(235)U to use for fission later.

Ultimately, you use up more energy than you get back. And this would be extremely inefficient monetarily speaking.