Physics World September 17, 2019
An international consortium is currently building the most ambitious fusion experiment to date in rural southern France. ITER will ultimately produce 10 times more energy than is needed to heat its fusion fuel – generating 500 MW of power for 20 minutes using only 50 MW of input power. One of its core objectives is to prepare the ground for the first large-scale fusion power plants. A new development is a major upgrade to the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST), a UK facility that represents a different approach to fusion power. MAST exploits a spherical design – like a cored apple, rather than the ring doughnut shape of JET and ITER – that was pioneered by the UKAEA in the late 1990s. The compact geometry of the spherical tokamak requires a lower magnetic field, which is less expensive to produce and maintain…read more.
Inside the Joint European Torus (Courtesy: European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy)