Tokamak Energy turns on the ST40, it’s third reactor in five years, that will reach 100m degrees by next year, the temperature required for fusion.
ST40 is the third stage of a five stage plan that will deliver fusion energy into the grid by 2030.
The UK’s newest fusion reactor has been turned on for the first time and has officially achieved first plasma. The reactor aims to produce a record-breaking plasma temperature of 100 million degrees for a privately-funded venture. This is seven times hotter than the centre of the Sun and the temperature necessary for controlled fusion.
The tokamak reactor, entitled the ‘ST40’, was built by Tokamak Energy, one of the world’s leading private fusion energy ventures. The Oxfordshire-based company grew out of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy and was established in 2009 to design and develop small fusion reactors. Tokamak Energy’s aim is to put fusion power into the grid by 2030.
Tokamak magnetic field and current. Shown is the toroidal field and the coils (blue) that produce it, the plasma current (red) and the poloidal field produced by it, and the resulting twisted field when these are overlaid. Credit wikimedia
source Tokamak Energy
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