• SPECIAL TOPIC: POWER GENERATION •
The ITER Organization is now overseeing the integration and assembly of components delivered to the ITER site by the seven ITER Members. This includes the assembly of the ITER Tokamak, with its estimated one million components, and the parallel installation and integration of plant systems such as radio frequency heating, fuel cycle, cryogenic, cooling water, vacuum, control, and high voltage electrical.
JET’ s tritium experiments In February, the UK’ s Joint European Torus( JET), one of the world’ s largest and most powerful fusion machines, demonstrated the ability to reliably generate fusion energy whilst simultaneously setting a world-record in energy output. In JET’ s final deuterium-tritium experiments( DTE3), high fusion power was consistently produced for five seconds, resulting in a ground-breaking record of 69 megajoules using a mere 0.2 milligrams of fuel.
JET is a tokamak, a design which uses powerful magnetic fields to confine a plasma in the shape of a donut. Most approaches to creating commercial fusion favor the use of two hydrogen variants— deuterium and tritium.
A cutaway of the Jet tokamak ractor. Image © United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority
TAE’ s fifth-generation fusion platform is named after fusion energy pioneer and late co-creator of the company’ s proprietary technology, Dr. Norman Rostoker.
When deuterium and tritium fuse together they produce helium and vast amounts of energy.
Dr. Fernanda Rimini, JET senior exploitation manager, said:“ We can reliably create fusion plasmas using the same fuel mixture to be used by commercial fusion energy powerplants, showcasing the advanced expertise developed over time.”
TAE Technologies
Based in Southern California, TAE Technologies is one of the leading global fusion companies. With declared funding of over USD 1.2 billion, it is also one of the best funded. The company is pioneering a visionary approach to fusion energy, combining advanced accelerator and plasma physics using non-radioactive, abundant boron as a fuel.
TAE says that its approach represents the fastest, most practical, and economically competitive solution to bring abundant carbon-free energy to the grid.
TAE’ s fifth-generation reactor, Norman, was unveiled in 2017 and was designed to keep plasma stable at 30 million degrees Celsius. Norman uses a linear field-reverse configuration combined with intense neutral beam injection to sustain the plasma. Hydrogen gas is heated to form two smoke rings of plasma, which are supersonically slammed together.
The rings merge in the middle, forming a spinning plasma held together by strong, self-created magnetic fields. Neutral beams are used to stabilize the plasma and achieve longer, higher temperature field reversed configurations.
In 2022, after Norman achieved temperatures greater than 75 million degrees Celsius and demonstrated real-time control of plasma in this stateof-the-art fusion research reactor, TAE Technologies announced that it had secured strategic and institutional investments to fund the construction of its next research reactor, Copernicus. The Copernicus reactor is being built in a 100,000-square-foot facility in Irvine, California. This year, it should demonstrate the viability of achieving net energy generation with TAE’ s advanced beam-driven field-reversed configuration( FRC)— the penultimate step on TAE’ s path to commercializing clean fusion power.
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