Especially in recent years, the scientific world has achieved serious success in fusion energy. Nuclear fusion is important for humanity because there is unlimited energy. As an example of nuclear fusion, we can give the reactions that take place in the core of the Sun. Harnessing fusion energy has long been the target of scientists and researchers, as it produces no greenhouse gas emissions or long-lived radioactive waste.However, there are various obstacles in front of producing fusion energy such as high temperature and pressure requirement, plasma instability, cost, scalability and finding energy balance. In short, we can’t consistently get more than the energy we give to create the fusion for now. Although more energy was obtained than the amount of energy given in nuclear fusion in the USA last year, there are obstacles to be overcome. Another important step was taken in a new study. Scientists have reached very high temperatures in a small reactor.
New step in nuclear fusion
There are different types of reactors to achieve fusion, one of which is tokamak-based ones. Tokamaks can be summarized as a device mainly used in magnetic confinement fusion. These reactions use a strong magnetic field to control and trap the hot plasma of the fusion fuel in the reactor core. The main goal is to maintain a stable plasma state where fusion reactions can occur continuously and provide an unlimited energy source. This requires extremely high temperatures.A new study by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Tokamak Energy marks a breakthrough in fusion energy research. The team managed to reach the temperature of about 100 million degrees Celsius, which is necessary for fusion power plants to produce commercial-grade energy. This success and the device called ST40 is completely unique because it has a much smaller and more spherical plasma than other fusion devices.
Promising for commercial fusion power plants
To achieve these results, the researchers used an approach similar to that of the TFTR tokamak in the 1990s, which produced more than 10 million watts of fusion power in the TFTR tokamak. The team used 1.8 million watts of high-energy neutral particles to heat the plasma. Although the plasma discharge or fusion reactions took only 0.15 seconds to take place actively, ion temperatures in the core rose above 100 million degrees Celsius.The results hold promise for the future development of fusion power plants based on compact high-area spherical tokamaks. These developments could lead to more efficient and economically viable fusion energy solutions that offer a promising avenue for sustainable and clean power generation.
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