There is a large electric current in the plasma inside this machine; it is responsible for creating the necessary magnetic fields to make the reversed field pinch configuration. It also heats the plasma very quickly — the same way wires inside your toaster get hot. Your toaster probably uses about 10 ampere of current, while the plasma in MST is heated by up to 600,000 amperes. But even though the plasma reaches over 10,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit, it is not hot enough for practical fusion energy and we need to find other ways to deposit energy into the plasma. The EBW is a way to inject microwave power to further heat the plasma. The standard microwave oven produces around 1 kW of power at a frequency of 2.45 GHz; the EBW experiment is currently producing 150 kW at 3.6 GHz, and it is a goal of the team to upgrade to over 2 MW. To generate this type of power (on a low budget), decommissioned military radar equipment and home-made voltage power supplies are used.