{"id":205052,"date":"2024-02-09T03:37:56","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T03:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/09\/uks-jet-nuclear-fusion-reactor-sets-new-world-record-for-energy-output\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:21:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:21:59","slug":"uks-jet-nuclear-fusion-reactor-sets-new-world-record-for-energy-output","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/09\/uks-jet-nuclear-fusion-reactor-sets-new-world-record-for-energy-output\/","title":{"rendered":"UK&#8217;s JET nuclear fusion reactor sets new world record for energy output"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<figure class=\"article-image-inline ArticleImage\" data-method=\"caption-shortcode\">\n<div class=\"ArticleImage__Wrapper\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/08113604\/SEI_190546184.jpg?width=1200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/08113604\/SEI_190546184.jpg?width=100 100w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/08113604\/SEI_190546184.jpg?width=200 200w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/08113604\/SEI_190546184.jpg?width=249 249w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/08113604\/SEI_190546184.jpg?width=300 300w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/08113604\/SEI_190546184.jpg?width=400 400w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/08113604\/SEI_190546184.jpg?width=500 500w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/08113604\/SEI_190546184.jpg?width=600 600w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/08113604\/SEI_190546184.jpg?width=700 700w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/08113604\/SEI_190546184.jpg?width=800 800w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/08113604\/SEI_190546184.jpg?width=900 900w\" class=\"image wp-image-2416378 size-full ReplaceImageLazyload\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1130px) 900px, (min-width: 1025px) 900, (min-width: 768px) calc(100vw - 30px), calc(100vw - 30px)\" alt=\"\" width=\"1350\" height=\"901\" data-credit=\"EUROfusion\" data-caption=\"Inside the JET fusion reactor\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"ArticleImageCaption\">\n<div class=\"ArticleImageCaption__CaptionWrapper\">\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Title\">Inside the JET fusion reactor<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Credit\">EUROfusion<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>The UK\u2019s 40-year-old fusion reactor achieved a world record for energy output in its final runs before being shut down for good, scientists have announced.<\/p>\n<p>The Joint European Torus (JET) in Oxfordshire began operating in 1983. When running, it was temporarily the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2341635-9-surprising-things-we-learned-at-new-scientist-live-2022\/#:~:text=The%20hottest%20point%20in%20the,the%20surface%20of%20the%20sun.\">hottest point in the solar system<\/a>, reaching 150 million\u00b0C.<\/p>\n<p>The reactor\u2019s previous record was a reaction lasting for 5 seconds in 2021, producing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2307548-fusion-energy-record-suggests-we-really-could-build-artificial-suns\/#:~:text=The%20experiment%20at%20the%20Joint,a%20second%2C%20set%20in%201997.\">59 megajoules of heat energy<\/a>. But in its final tests in late 2023, it surpassed this by sustaining a reaction for 5.2 seconds while also reaching 69 megajoules of output, using just 0.2 milligrams of fuel.<\/p>\n<p>\n    <iframe title=\"The moment UK nuclear fusion reactor set new world record for energy output\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b8l43hrDcJ8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n    <\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p>This equates to a power output of 12.5 megawatts \u2013 enough to power 12,000 homes, said Mikhail Maslov of the UK Atomic Energy Authority at a press conference on 8 February.<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s nuclear power plants rely on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article-topic\/fission\/\">fission reactions<\/a>, where atoms are smashed apart to release energy and smaller particles. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article-topic\/nuclear-fusion\/\">Fusion<\/a> works in reverse, squeezing smaller particles together into larger atoms.<\/p>\n<p>Fusion can create more energy with none of the resulting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article-topic\/radioactive\/\">radioactive<\/a> waste created by fission, but we don\u2019t yet have a practical way to harness this process in a power plant.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"js-content-prompt-opportunity\"\/><\/p>\n<p>JET forged together atoms of deuterium and tritium \u2013 two stable isotopes of hydrogen \u2013 in plasma to create helium, while also releasing a vast amount of energy. This is the same reaction that powers our sun. It was a type of fusion reactor known as a tokamak, which contains plasma in a donut shape using rings of electromagnets.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists ran the last experiments with deuterium-tritium fuel at JET in October last year and other experiments continued until December. But the machine has now been shut down for good and it is being decommissioned over the next 16 years.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manchester.academia.edu\/JMatthews\">Juan Matthews<\/a> at the University of Manchester, UK, says JET will reveal many secrets as it is dismantled, such as how the lining of the reactor deteriorated through contact with plasma and where valuable tritium \u2013 worth around \u00a330,000 a gram \u2013 has embedded in the machinery and can be recovered. This will be vital information for future research and commercial reactors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s great that it\u2019s gone out with a little flourish,\u201d says Matthews. \u201cIt\u2019s got a noble history. It\u2019s served its time and they\u2019re going to squeeze a bit more information out of it during its decommissioning period as well. So it\u2019s not something to be sad about; it\u2019s something to be celebrated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A larger and more modern replacement for JET, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France, is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2280763-worlds-most-powerful-magnet-being-shipped-to-iter-fusion-reactor\/\">nearing completion<\/a>\u00a0and its first experiments are due to start in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Tim Luce, deputy head of the ITER construction project, told the press conference that ITER will scale up the energy output to 500 megawatts, or possibly even 700.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are what I usually call power plant scale,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re at the lower end of what you would need for an electricity generating facility. In addition, we need to extend the timescale to at least 300 seconds for the high fusion power and gain but perhaps as long as an hour in terms of energy production. So what JET has done is exactly a scale model of what we have to do in the ITER project.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another reactor using the same design, the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device, recently managed to sustain a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2336385-korean-nuclear-fusion-reactor-achieves-100-millionc-for-30-seconds\/\">reaction for 30 seconds at temperatures in excess of 100 million\u00b0C<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There are other approaches to creating a working fusion reactor being pursued around the world as well, such as the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. This bombards capsules of fuel with immensely powerful lasers, a process called inertial confinement fusion, and has managed to unleash <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2414681-nuclear-fusion-reaction-releases-almost-twice-the-energy-put-in\/\">almost twice the energy that was put into it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<section class=\"ArticleTopics\">\n<p class=\"ArticleTopics__Heading\">Topics:<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2415909-uk-nuclear-fusion-reactor-sets-new-world-record-for-energy-output\/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&#038;utm_source=NSNS&#038;utm_medium=RSS&#038;utm_content=home\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] Inside the JET fusion reactor EUROfusion The UK\u2019s 40-year-old fusion reactor achieved a world record for energy output in its final runs before being<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":205053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205052"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344764,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205052\/revisions\/344764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}