Nuclear Fusion Record Smashed. But does this bring us closer to… | by Will Lockett | Predict | Apr, 2024 | Medium

Inside the JET Fusion reactor — JET

Nuclear Fusion Record Smashed

But does this bring us closer to unlocking this utopian energy source?

Will Lockett

Published in

Predict

4 min read

1 day ago

A few days ago, South Korea’s Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) obliterated its own fusion record by sustaining a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius for an astonishing 48 seconds! For some sense of scale here, that is 17,857 times hotter than the surface of the Sun and nearly 7 times hotter than the core of the Sun! KSTAR’s previous 2021 record was for the same temperature, but only for 31 seconds, so this marks a significant leap forward. But the question has to be asked: does this bring us any closer to unlocking the ultimate clean energy source, nuclear fusion? Well, yes, it does; let me explain.

Let’s start with what fusion is and why it could be so revolutionary.

Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the Sun. In its core, the temperatures are so high and the pressure is so intense that hydrogen atoms have enough kinetic energy to overcome the repulsive force that keeps them separate and fuse into a single larger helium atom when they collide. Helium weighs slightly less than two atoms of hydrogen, so there is a bit of spare mass floating around in the form of subatomic particles. These particles can’t physically exist without being attached to protons or neutrons, so they turn into energy and radiate out. Now, if you paid attention in physics class, you’d remember that Einstein’s famous equation E=MC² means that a tiny bit of matter is equal to an utterly vast amount of energy!

As such, a single kg of hydrogen can produce 177,717 MWh of energy through fusion, or 7.9 times more than a kg of pure uranium-235 produces through fission or 14.8 million times more energy than a kg of gasoline through combustion! But, unlike uranium or gasoline, fusion doesn’t produce any radioactive waste or climate-destroying emissions. The only by-product is valuable non-radioactive helium gas.

So, if we can replicate the Sun and harness this process ourselves, we could power the entire world with copious amounts of on-tap carbon-neutral energy from only a few hundred tonnes of hydrogen each year.

But here is the problem: the fusion reactors we have created so far have all used more energy to generate fusion than…