The old joke is that nuclear fusion is always 30 years away. However, the dream of plentiful clean energy is no laughing matter as we meet an INTER researcher to catch up on progress at the reactor facility. By creating light and heat through nuclear fusion, the Sun has fueled life on Earth for billions of years. Given that incredible power and longevity, it seems there can hardly be a better way to generate energy than by harnessing the same nuclear processes that occur in stars, including our own sun. Nuclear fusion reactors aim to reproduce this process by fusing hydrogen atoms to create helium, which releases energy in the form of heat. Sustaining this at a large scale has the potential to produce a safe, clean, almost inexhaustible power supply. Some hope so, following a major breakthrough during a nuclear-fusion experiment in late 2021. This came at the Joint European Torus (JET) research facility in Oxfordshire, UK, in a giant, doughnut-shaped machine called a tokamak. Inside, superheated gases called plasmas are generated in which the fusion reactions take place, containing charged particles that are held in place by powerful magnetic fields. Such plasmas can reach temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius, an unfathomable 10 times hotter than the Sun’s core.
In a sustained five-second burst, researchers in the EURO fusion consortium released a record-breaking 59 megajoules (MJ) of fusion energy. This was almost triple the previous 21.7 MJ record set at the same facility in 1997, with the results touted as “the clearest demonstration in a quarter of a century of the potential for fusion energy to deliver safe and sustainable low-carbon energy.” Follow the link to learn more about the successful nuclear fusion experiment at JET. The results provided a major boost ahead of the next phase of nuclear fusion’s development. A larger and more advanced version of JET known as
INTER, which is being built as a collaboration between 35 nations, including those in the EU, is aimed at further firming up the concept of fusion. One of the most complicated machines ever to be created, it was scheduled to start generating its first plasma in 2025 before entering into high-power operation around 2035 – although researchers on the project expect some delays because of the pandemic. Major milestone. The results at JET represent a major landmark, said Professor Tony Donné, program manager of the EURO fusion project, a major consortium of 4,800 experts, students, and facilities across Europe. “It’s a huge milestone – the biggest for a long time,” he said.
“It’s confirmed all the modeling, so it has really increased confidence that INTER will work and do what it’s meant to do.” While the energy generated at the JET lasted just a few seconds, the aim is to ramp this up to a sustained reaction that produces energy.
The results were the culmination of years of preparation, with Prof Donné explaining that one of the key developments since 1997 involved changing the inner wall of the JET vessel.
The quest began decades ago, but could a long-running joke that nuclear fusion is always 30 years away soon start to look dated?
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