Fusion energy a 'huge step' closer after record-breaking UK experiment

9 February 2022, 13:59 | Updated: 9 February 2022, 14:03

Fusion energy is a "huge step" closer after landmark experiments showed it has the potential to deliver safe and sustainable low-carbon energy.

The Joint European Torus (JET), a fusion device in Oxfordshire, produced a world record total of 59 megajoules of heat energy from fusion over a five second period.

During the experiments, JET averaged a fusion power of around 11 megawatts (megajoules per second).

Based on the same principle by which stars create heat and light, fusion could be a safe and sustainable part of the world's future energy supply.

Atoms merge rather than being split as in a nuclear reactor, resulting in the release of a large amount of energy.

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The process has abundant fuels and emits no greenhouse gases, but harnessing and reining in the forces involved is a huge challenge.

This is because at the heart of a fusion reactor is a super-hot cloud of electrically charged gas, or plasma, 10 times hotter than the sun's core.

When a few grams of hydrogen fuels are heated to these temperatures, plasma - in which fusion reactions take place - is formed.

JET experiments use isotopes of hydrogen known as deuterium and tritium as fuel. While tritium is extremely rare and produced in nuclear reactors, deuterium is abundantly available in sea water.

A commercial fusion power station would use the energy produced by fusion reactions to generate electricity.

In the experiments, scientists more than doubled previous records achieved in 1997 at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) site using the same fuel mixture to be used in commercial fusion energy powerplants.

The previous energy record from a fusion experiment, achieved by JET in 1997, was 22 megajoules of heat energy.

However, the peak power of 16 megawatts achieved briefly in 1997 has not been achieved recently as the focus has been on sustained fusion power.

The latest record was achieved by researchers from the EUROfusion consortium - 4,800 experts, students and staff from across Europe, co-funded by the European Commission.

Tony Donne, EUROfusion programme manager, said: "If we can maintain fusion for five seconds, we can do it for five minutes and then five hours as we scale up our operations in future machines.

"This is a big moment for every one of us and the entire fusion community."

Ian Chapman, the UKAEA's CEO, added: "These landmark results have taken us a huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all.

"It is reward for over 20 years of research and experiments with our partners from across Europe.

"It's clear we must make significant changes to address the effects of climate change, and fusion offers so much potential."

Researchers say the experiment is a major boost for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter), the larger and more advanced version of JET.

Iter is a fusion research project supported by seven members - China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the US - based in the south of France.

Dr Mark Wenman, reader in nuclear materials at Imperial College London, said: "This means we can expect big things from Iter and that fusion energy really is no longer just a dream of the far future - the engineering to make it a useful, clean power source is achievable and happening now."

Ian Fells, Emeritus Professor of energy conversion at the University of Newcastle, called the breakthrough "a formidable success", adding "ten to 20 years could see commercialisation".