![]() ![]() Is pure fusion truly only a matter of years away? Opinions vary due to the formidable technical challenges that remain to be solved. “This will allow fusion power to be achieved in years, not decades.” The fusion-fission hybrid concept “The ST40 is a machine that will show fusion temperatures are possible in compact, cost-effective reactors,” said Tokamak Energy CEO Dr David Kingham. In late April the company’s newest reactor, the ST40, achieved first plasma, and the company aims to hit the 100 million degrees necessary for fusion in 2018. In the UK, Oxfordshire-based Tokamak Energy, founded by former scientists from the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, is working on a small spherical tokamak design. Tri Alpha Energy, meanwhile, formed in California in 1997 and has received $500m in private funding, but has remained mostly quiet as it develops its beam-driven field reversed configuration tech to create a super-heated plasma environment suitable for fusion the company didn’t launch its website until 2015. Washington-based Helion Energy, which is developing a shipping container-sized 50MW fusion reactor combining magnetic fusion and pulsed inertial fusion, built on funding from the US Government with private investments from seed accelerators in 20. These smaller companies are aiming to run more streamlined development programmes, often working towards smaller scales and using technology combinations to accelerate the process. Nevertheless, there has been a notable shift in recent years, bringing fusion research into the domain of private start-ups as well as massive international programmes. The protracted fusion energy research efforts have led to a general pessimism from many observers of the developing technology a common turn of phrase is that commercial fusion energy is just over the horizon – and always will be. While both of these projects are large and promising, the milestone of hitting positive net energy has proven elusive, with decades of research since the 1950s unable to find a definitive answer to the scientific and engineering challenges involved. ![]()
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