Page 12 - aruba-today-20220211

A12 science
Friday 11 February 2022

Experts hail big step forward in fusion

technology in UK

atoms so close to each
other that they combine
into helium, which releases
torrents of energy.
Carolyn Kuranz at the Uni-
versity of Michigan called
the development "very ex-
citing" and a step toward
achieving "ignition," or
when the fuel can contin-
ue to "burn" on its own and
produce more energy than
what's needed to spark the
initial reaction.
She said the results ap-
peared "very promising"
Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, 2nd left, talks with for ITER, a much larger ex-
Professor Ian Chapman, CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, perimental fusion facility in
left, Nanna Heiberg, 2nd right, and Joseph Milnes, head of engi- southern France that uses
neering design unit, right, alongside the MAST Upgrade cham- the same technology and
ber, during his visit to the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA)
at the Culham Science Centre in Abingdon, southern England, is backed by many Euro-
Thursday Oct. 18, 2018. pean countries, the United
Associated Press States, China, Japan, India,
South Korea and Russia. It is
LONDON (AP) — European machines," said Tony Don- expected to begin opera-
scientists have taken a sig- ne, program manager for tion in 2026.
nificant step closer to mas- EUROfusion. "This is a big Riccardo Betti, a fusion
tering a technology that moment for every one of us expert at the University
could allow them to one and the entire fusion com- of Rochester, said the
day harness nuclear fu- munity." achievement lay mainly in
sion, providing a clean and Ian Chapman, CEO of the sustaining the reaction at
almost limitless source of U.K. Atomic Energy Author- high performance levels
energy, British officials said ity, said the results were a for five seconds, significant-
Wednesday. "huge step closer to con- ly longer than previously
Researchers at the Joint quering one of the biggest achieved in a tokamak.
European Torus experiment scientific and engineering The amount of power
near Oxford managed to challenges of them all." gained was still well below
produce a record amount The facility, also known as the amount needed to
of heat energy over a five- JET, is home to the world's perform the experiment, he
second period, which was largest and most powerful added. Ian Fells, an emeri-
the duration of the experi- operational tokamak — a tus professor of energy con-
ment, the U.K. Atomic En- donut-shaped device that version at the University of
ergy Authority said. is considered one promis- Newcastle, described the
The 59 megajoules of sus- ing method for performing new record as a landmark
tained fusion energy pro- controlled fusion. in fusion research.
duced were more than Scientists who were not in- "Now it is up to the engi-
double the previous record volved in the project be- neers to translate this into
achieved in 1997. lieved it was a significant carbon-free electricity and
The agency said the result result, but still a very long mitigate the problem of
was "the clearest demon- way from achieving com- climate change," he said.
stration worldwide of the mercial fusion power. "Ten to 20 years could see
potential for fusion energy Researchers around the commercialization."
to deliver safe and sustain- world have long been Stephanie Diem of the Uni-
able low-carbon energy." working on nuclear fusion versity of Wisconsin, Madi-
"If we can maintain fusion technology, trying different son, said the technology
for five seconds, we can approaches. The ultimate used by JET to achieve the
do it for five minutes and goal is to generate power result, using magnets to
then five hours as we scale the way the sun generates control ultra-hot plasma,
up our operations in future heat, by pressing hydrogen show that harnessing fusion
— a process that occurs
naturally in the stars — is
physically feasible.
"The next milestone on the
horizon for magnetic fu-
sion is to demonstrate sci-
entific breakeven, where
the amount of energy pro-
duced from fusion reac-
tions exceeds that going
into the device," she said.q