Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumThe UK Just Switched on an Ambitious Fusion Reactor - and It Works
Well, it turned on and there's a plasma blob. No fusion, yet.
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The UK's newest fusion reactor, ST40, was switched on last week, and has already managed to achieve 'first plasma' - successfully generating a scorching blob of electrically-charged gas (or plasma) within its core.
The aim is for the tokamak reactor to heat plasma up to 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit) by 2018 - seven times hotter than the centre of the Sun. That's the 'fusion' threshold, at which hydrogen atoms can begin to fuse into helium, unleashing limitless, clean energy in the process.
"Today is an important day for fusion energy development in the UK, and the world," said David Kingham, CEO of Tokamak Energy, the company behind ST40.
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-uk-has-just-switch-on-its-tokamak-nuclear-fusion-reactor
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)ProfessorPlum
(11,277 posts)The sun does it at sun temperatures.
Maybe it's also a pressure thing.