UK experts hail big step forward in fusion technology

Scientists have moved a step closer to developing power plants that run on nuclear fusion, which is the atomic reaction that powers the stars, after an experiment at a United Kingdom facility achieved record-breaking results.

Engineers at the Joint European Torus, or JET, in Oxford have more than doubled the previous energy record from a fusion reactor, achieving 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy over five seconds, equivalent to 11 megawatts of power.

"These landmark results have taken us a huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all," said Ian Chapman, who is chief executive of the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

Perhaps the most significant outcome of the experiment is that it validates many of the methods and technologies currently being incorporated into ITER, which is a nuclear fusion megaproject in France funded and run by China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States.

While traditional nuclear power plants run by process of fission, nuclear fusion reactors harness the energy produced when atoms are combined.

Nuclear fusion power plants would have many benefits over current sources of energy. Comparatively, small amounts of fuel would be needed to produce large amounts of energy in the fusion reaction, and some of the most effective fuels are abundant, including deuterium.

The catch is that extremely high temperatures are needed to fuse atoms. In the JET facility, plasma is heated to 150 million C, which is around 10 times hotter than the center of the sun. To date, no facility has produced more fusion power output than electrical power input.

One of the major objectives for ITER is to be the first fusion reactor to break even and then eventually achieve a net gain in power.

Once operational toward the end of 2025, ITER will be the biggest nuclear fusion facility in the world, with a plasma volume around 10 times more than the largest reactors running today.