After 40 years of major fusion milestones, the Joint European Taurus (JET) facility finally closed in December 2023, but not without its final record-breaking achievements. On Thursday, representatives of the breakthrough tokamak reactor confirmed the final experiment. Generates 69.26 megajoules Provides energy in just 5 seconds. This is more than 10 megajoules more than JET’s previous world record and more than three times his original peak power level of 22 megajoules back in 1997.
[Related: The world’s largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor is up and running.]
The JET reactor facility in Oxfordshire, England, began operations in 1983 with the hope of moving the world closer to sustainable and economically viable nuclear fusion production. While nuclear fission releases large amounts of energy by splitting atoms, nuclear fusion shatters atoms such as tritium and deuterium at temperatures exceeding 150 million degrees Celsius, producing helium plasma, neutrons, and tremendous energy. Generates no amount of energy. The Sun, and by extension all other stars, are essentially giant celestial fusion reactors, so replicating even a fraction of that kind of power on Earth could revolutionize the energy industry.
first tokamakThe nuclear reactor, an acronym for “toroidal chamber with magnetic coil,” was put into operation in the Soviet Union in 1958. A tokamak resembles a giant, highly high-tech tire that is filled with hydrogen gas fuel and rotates at high speed via magnetic coils. The force of rotation around the chamber ionizes the atoms into helium plasma.
Although fusion reactions can occur in multiple facilities around the world, they remain prohibitively expensive. For example, his December record on JET achieved an all-time high energy level in just 5 seconds, but its 69 megajoules is still only enough to heat several bathtubs of water. did.
Even the most optimistic realists estimate that it could take another 20 years ( very at least) before affordable fusion energy becomes a viable option. On the other hand, a useful fusion reactor is Not an economically viable solution. Currently, simply igniting a fusion reactor costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, much less sustaining the process indefinitely, which is impossible for anyone to do since the technology is not yet available. is. In addition, today’s climate emergency cannot wait for solutions that are more than 20 years away. But if society ends up making fusion reactors a viable and sustainable alternative, it will be largely thanks to all that his JET has accomplished in his 40 years of work.
When you talk to BBC On Thursday, UK Atomic Energy and Networks Minister Andrew Bowie described JET’s final test as a fitting “swan song” for a reactor that will bring the world “closer to fusion energy than ever before.”
With JET’s power permanently shut down, the world’s largest fusion reactor is now Japan’s six-story JT-60SA tokamak, located north of Tokyo. It was launched in December 2023, but if everything goes according to plan, the JT-60SA won’t hold the title for long. Its European sibling, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), is scheduled to become operational sometime in 2025, but the project has not been without its challenges and delays.
