Tokamak reactor

Seeking to improve the tokamak fusion reactor known as ITER, researchers have found a way to stop rogue tungsten atoms from shearing off the walls and messing with the plasma. The finding is another important milestone on fusion's road to success.

A recent ITER workshop bringing together almost 50 CEOs and senior scientists from private fusion startups suggests that combining the technologies from magnetic and laser fusion experiments could accelerate the development of practical fusion power.

The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) hits a new fusion reactor endurance record that could open the door to practical fusion power on a commercial scale. Using a tungsten lining, the WEST reactor held a reaction for six minutes.

With 2023 drawing to a close, it's once again time to look at the significant, intriguing, and sometimes just plain daft science stories of the year. So, let's dive in and see what the science types have been up to.

The world's largest and most advanced tokamak fusion reactor has gone online as the EU/Japanese 370-tonne JT-60SA reactor was fired up for the first time during an inauguration ceremony in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.

Tokamak Energy has released the first images of what its commercial fusion power plant, which it says would safely generate enough electricity to power 50,000 homes in the 2030s, would look like.

Oxford-based UK tech firm Tokamak Energy has reached a milestone in privately-funded fusion research after its ST-40 spherical tokamak reactor reached a temperature of 100 million °C (180 million °F), the threshold for commercial fusion energy.

Good news for fusion energy progress and a new world record for the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as its Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), or "artifical sun," maintains 70 million degrees Celsius (126 million °F) for 1,056 seconds.

A popular design in the pursuit of fusion power is the tokamak and an exciting example of these donut-shaped reactors can be found at the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy, where a new record for maintaining super-hot plasma has reportedly been set.

Chinese state media is reporting that scientists working on the EAST experimental nuclear fusion reactor have achieved a new world record by holding plasma of 120 million degrees Celsius for 101 seconds in their latest round of experiments.

For nearly a century, scientists have been tantalized by the prospect of attaining an inexhaustible source of energy through nuclear fusion. Achieving this goal is not so easy, as it turns out, but that doesn't mean exciting advances aren't being made.

The structure that will house one of the largest and most ambitious energy experiments in history is now complete, with engineers working on the ITER Tokamak Building swinging their last pylon into place in readiness for the reactor's assembly stage.