Experts hail big step forward in fusion technology in UK

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European scientists have taken important steps closer to mastering technology that can enable them one day to use nuclear fusion, provide clean and almost unlimited energy sources, British officials said on Wednesday.

The researchers in the Torus European trial together near Oxford succeeded in producing a number of heat energy records over a five-second period, which was a duration of the experiment, the Atomic Energy Authority said UK.

59 Megajoule from sustainable fusion energy produced more than doubled the previous recording achieved in 1997.

‘Big moment’

The agency said the results were “the most obvious demonstrations around the world about the potential of fusion energy to provide safe and sustainable low-carbon energy.” “If we can maintain fusion for five seconds, we can do it for five minutes and then five hours we improve our operations on the engine of the future,” said Tony Donne, program manager for Eurofusion. “This is a big moment for each of us and The whole fusion community. “Ian Chapman, UK CEO Atomic energy authorities, said the results “a big step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of all of them.”

This facility, also known as a jet, is home to the largest and most powerful operational tokamak in the world – a donut-shaped device that is considered a promising method for conducting controlled fusion.

‘Promising and exciting’

Scientists who are not involved in the project believe it is a significant result, but it is still very far from achieving commercial fusion strength.

Carolyn Kuranz at Michigan University calls “very interesting” development and step towards reaching “ignition,” which means that the energy consumed to start fusion.

He said the results appeared “very promising” for Iter, far greater experimental fusion facilities in South France who used the same technology and supported by many European countries, the United States, China, Japan, India, South Korea and Russia.

Riccardo Betti, a fusion expert at the University of Rochester, said that this achievement rested mainly in maintaining a reaction at a high performance level for five seconds, significantly longer than what was achieved in the tokamak.

The amount of power obtained is still far below the amount needed to experiment, he added.

Ian Fells, a Professor of Emeritus’s energy conversion at the University of Newcastle, described a new record as a landmark in Fusion research.

“Now it’s up to the engineers to translate this into carbon-free electricity and reduce the problem of climate change,” he said. “Ten to 20 years can see commercialization.” Stephanie Diem from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said the technology used by the jet to achieve the results, using a magnet to control ultra-hot plasma, indicating that utilizing fusion – processes that occur naturally in the stars – physically feasible.

“The next historical milestone on the horizon for magnetic fusion is to show the science break even, where the amount of energy produced from the fusion reaction exceeds the device,” he said.