Engineers and scientists in the city of Oxford have set a nuclear fusion energy record on Thursday, bringing the clean, futuristic power source one step closer to reality.
Joint European Torus (JET)
A donut shaped large machine also known as tokamak was used in which scientists have sustained a 69 megajoules of fusion energy for 5 seconds, using just 0.2 milligrams of fuel, which is enough to power almost 12,000 houses for the same amount of time, thus, creating a record.
What is Nuclear Fusion?
It is the same process that powers the sun and other starts, which is seen as the holy heap of clean energy.
As the name suggests, fusion means integration of atoms in the core of the sun.
Experts have worked for years to master this process on earth, upon its success it would generate large amount of continuous energy with tiny inputs of fuel without emitting green house gases in the process.
How the record was made?
Tokamak was fed by deuterium and tritium, which are hydrogen isotopes that future commercial nuclear fusion plants are most likely to use.
In order to generate fusion energy, the temperature in the machine was raised to 150 million degrees Celsius almost 10 times hotter than the core of the sun.
The heat forces deuterium and tritium to fuse together and form helium, this process in turn releases a lot of heat.
The tokamak lined with super strong magnets that holds the plasma in. the heat chamber is then extracted and used to produce electricity.
This is the last experiment of its kind for JET, which has operated for more than 40 years. This experiment with his new record has a promising news for future such fusion experiments, said Ambrogio Fasoli, CEO of EUROfusion. He pointed to ITER, the world’s biggest tokamak currently building in southern France.
“Our successful demonstration of operational scenarios for future fusion machines like ITER and DEMO, validated by the new energy record, instil greater confidence in the development of nuclear fusion energy,” Fasoli said in a statement.
Significant record amid Climate Change
As nuclear fusion energy is the gamechanger for the climate crisis caused by the burning fossil fuels, the fusion energy will still need many years and further developments to get commercialize.
Aneeqa khan, research fellow at university of Manchester university said, by the time it will fully develop, it would be too late to use as a main tool to address climate change. “This is a great scientific result, but we are still a way off commercial fusion. Building a nuclear fusion power plant also has many engineering and materials challenges,”
“However, investment in nuclear fusion is growing and we are making real progress. We need to be training up a huge number of people with the skills to work in the field and I hope the technology will be used in the latter half of the century.” Khan added.
Moreover, the record was made the same day as the European Union’s climate and weather monitoring services, confirmed that the world has breached a global warming threshold of 1.5 degree Celsius over 12-month period for the first time ever.
Studies show that the world must reduce its green house emissions by 50% in this decade in order to reach net emissions by 2050 to stop climate disasters. That means making a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, like coal, oil and gas.
ALSO READ : Elon Musk’s Neuralink implants its first human chip.
Comments 2