France has upped the ante in the quest for fusion power by maintaining a plasma reaction for over 22 minutes – a new record. The milestone was reached on February 12 at the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA) WEST Tokamak reactor.
France has upped the ante in the quest for fusion power by maintaining a plasma reaction for over 22 minutes – a new record.
The tricky bit isn’t to get atoms to fuse. That’s a fairly simple lab bench experiment. The problem is creating the right conditions where the fusion reaction is self-sustaining, with a net energy output. That means reaching temperatures of between 100 – 150 million °C (180 – 270 million °F, or 3-5 times hotter than the Sun’s core), a pressure of five to 10 atmospheres at the point of reaction, and keeping a high-energy plasma stable for at least 10 seconds.
The tricky bit isn’t to get atoms to fuse. That’s a fairly simple lab bench experiment. The problem is creating the right conditions where the fusion reaction is self-sustaining, with a net energy output. That means reaching temperatures of between 100 – 150 million °C (180 – 270 million °F, or 3-5 times hotter than the Sun’s core), a pressure of five to 10 atmospheres at the point of reaction, and keeping a high-energy plasma stable for at least 10 seconds.