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Nuclear Fusion – Unitus
In the Nuclear Fusion research field, EUROfusion is the European consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, born in 2014 from the agreement to strengthen European collaboration on fusion research. Part of the EUROfusion programme, important to prepare the future ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) operations, is JET (Joint European Torus).
JET is a Tokamak, a nuclear fusion reactor with magnetic confinement, based at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), in Oxford, UK. It is the only tokamak in the world that can operate using the ideal fusion fuel: a mix of hydrogen isotopes, Deuterium and Tritium. The 2021 JET campaign with Deuterium and Tritium, designed also by EUROfusion, had different goals, and the most important was: “Demonstrate fusion power from 10 up to 15 Megawatts sustained for five seconds” breaking the record reached in 1997.
JET’s first world record, in 1997, concerned the generation of ~4.5 Megawatts of fusion power for 5 seconds by a sustained plasma, producing a total fusion energy of 22 Megajoules.
At the end of the 2021 experimental campaign, on December, JET’s researchers broke the previous record, reaching an important achievement, result of over 20 years of research, in which also UNITUS professors and researchers gave their contribution.
10 Megawatts of fusion power were generated by a sustaining steady D-T plasma for 5 seconds. The total amount of fusion energy released by the fusion process was 59 Megajoules, more than double of the previous case.
The record was announced on February 09, 2022. In this occasion the UKAEA’s CEO (UK Atomic Energy Authority that hosts JET) Prof. Ian Chapman said: “These landmark results have taken us a huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all. […] It is clear we must make significant changes to address the effects of climate change, and fusion offers so much potential. We are building the knowledge and developing the new technology required to deliver a low-carbon, sustainable source of baseload energy that helps protect the planet for future generations. Our world needs fusion energy.”
This is an important demonstration of how the cooperation and collaboration can lead to beneficial results for all humanity.
In this video (YouTube link), published by UK Government channel, is present the announcement of the JET Deuterium-Tritium results.
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