Nuclear fusion: Scientists talk of ‘significant progress’ towards inexhaustible energy source

London, Thanasis Gavos

Scientists in Britain have set a new record for the production of energy from controlled nuclear fusion, in an achievement that creates the prospect of a future almost indelible energy source.

The experimental JET fusion machine in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, produced about 59 megajoules, or 11 megawatts of energy that could power 10,000 homes over a continuous period of five seconds.

Although the experiment of the British scientists consumed more energy for the nuclear reaction than the energy that was finally produced, the fact that this reaction was not instantaneous but lasted for five seconds is considered a great and promising achievement.

Professor Ian Chapman, managing director of the UK Atomic Energy Agency, which funds the JET program, spoke of “landmark results that bring us one step closer to achieving one of the greatest scientific and engineering challenges there is.”

The nuclear process fusion requires the joining of two types of hydrogen, as opposed to nuclear fission that produces energy in traditional nuclear reactors by the decomposition of radioactive elements.

This fusion, similar to the solar power generation process, produces about four times more energy per fuel weight than nuclear fission and about 4 million times more energy than fossil fuel combustion.

The big bet is that this process can take a long time, a huge challenge considering that the JET engine reactor heats hydrogen to 150 million degrees Celsius, about ten times the temperature of the Sun.

Although we are still decades away from exploiting this way of producing energy, the announced achievement raises optimism that this alternative source of unlimited energy can be used in the future.

This method will be used in the much larger € 20 billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) being built in the south of France, in collaboration with the world’s largest economies.

The assembly of the “artificial sun”

It is recalled that in July 2020, the assembly of the giant reactor of the international ITER program began in the south of France, with the aim of achieving hydrogen fusion and the production of almost inexhaustible energy.

“With fusion, hydrogen can be the promise of the future,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a video during a ceremony at ITER headquarters in Saint-Paul-du-Durand. “A non-polluting energy, free of carbon, safe and virtually waste-free. “ITER is a promise for peace and progress,” he said. Switzerland, Russia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the USA.

Follow Skai.gr on Google News
and be the first to know all the news