Scientists Smash Nuclear Fusion Record, Igniting Hope For Limitless Clean Energy
Developing nuclear fusion for energy requirements has long been a goal of scientists but reaching temperatures over 100 million degrees Celsius and sustaining its long-term operation has always proved a challenge. Moreover, current reactor concepts consume more energy than they are able to produce.
However, using the machine with extremely low-density and electrically charged hydrogen gas as fuel, scientists managed to achieve the breakthrough. Wendelstein 7-X, officially called a 'stellarator', is a type of fusion device that confines hot, charged gas, known as plasma, with powerful external magnets controlling it.
On May 22, plasma inside Wendelstein 7-X was raised to over 20 million Celsius, reaching a peak of 30 million Celsius. It also reached a new record high triple product, a key metric for the success of fusion power generators. The triple product is a combination of the density of particles in the plasma, the temperature required for these particles to fuse, and the energy confinement time.
"The new record is a tremendous achievement by the international team. Elevating the triple product to tokamak levels during long plasma pulses marks another important milestone on the way toward a power-plant-capable stellarator," said Thomas Klinger, Head of Operations at Wendelstein 7-X.
Notably, the highest values for the triple product were achieved by the Japanese Tokamak JT60U (decommissioned in 2008) and the European Tokamak facility JET in Great Britain (decommissioned in 2023).
Holy grail
Scientists regard nuclear fusion as the holy grail of energy. It is what powers our Sun as atomic nuclei are merged to create massive amounts of energy, which is the opposite of the fission process used in atomic weapons and nuclear power plants, where the heavy atom is split into multiple smaller ones.
Last year, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) fusion energy reactor, dubbed China's 'artificial sun', sustained plasma for a whopping 1,000 seconds, breaking the 403-second record it set in 2023.
Unlike fission, fusion emits no greenhouse gases and carries less risk of accidents or the theft of atomic material. By mimicking the natural reaction of the sun, scientists are hoping that the technology may help harness near-unlimited amounts of energy and help battle the energy crisis, as well as power humanity's exploration beyond the solar system
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
5 hours ago
- Mint
IMD to buy two Isro satellites to help improve weather forecast
New Delhi: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) plans to ask the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) to build and launch two-fourth generation INSAT series satellites, helping improve the accuracy of its weather forecasting. These new satellites will replace IMD's two third-generation INSAT satellites by 2028-29 and at cost of ₹ 1,800 crore, said IMD director general Mrutyunjay Mohapatra in an interview. The upgraded satellites will give a better resolution of images and be equipped with state-of-the-art sensors for lightning forecasting, said Mohapatra. As many as 162 people were killed by lightning strikes in March and April. Mohapatra said, "In remote areas like oceans, hills, the Himalayas and polar regions, one cannot take observations by putting up the instruments. So, here the department goes for the remote sensing instruments like radars and satellites. 'Radars have limitations because a radar can cover only up to 500 kilometers at any particular place and you cannot put radar in the sea or hill peaks where you do not have any communication system or roads or water. So therefore, a satellite becomes very handy though its accuracy is less as compared to the ground truth and radars.' IMD has been using satellite technology extensively for weather monitoring and forecasting. This started with the use of photographs from Television Infrared Observation Satellites (TIROS-1) launched by the US in 1960. The two satellites currently used by IMD have a one-kilometer in visible range and 4 km infrared range. 'Then we have cascaded these two satellites so that every 15 minutes you get an image. The satellite is geostationary. Apart from this there are other sensors in the satellite which provide other information like say winds and humidity, water vapour you can say. So, these information's we get it from our own satellites,' IMD also gets data from European, Japanese and Korean satellites. According to him, there is a cooperation among the countries that is called coordinated group of meteorological satellites. However, there are still gaps in detecting small-scale weather events, such as cloudbursts, thunderstorms, and lightning due to a lack of high-resolution data, products, and satellite-based tools. "Considering this, Isro would be developing INSAT-4 series with better sensors and resolution," said Mohapatra. The assimilation of satellite data in the models has improved the accuracy in short to medium range forecasting by about 20% to 30%, according to IMD.
Time of India
8 hours ago
- Time of India
Japan plans 'world first' deep-sea mineral extraction
Japan will from January attempt to extract rare earth minerals from the ocean floor in the deepest trial of its kind, the director of a government innovation programme said Thursday. Earlier this week the country pledged to work with the United States , India and Australia to ensure a stable supply of critical minerals, as concern grows over China's dominance in resources vital to new technologies. Rare earths, 17 metals difficult to extract from the Earth's crust, are used in everything from electric vehicles to hard drives, wind turbines and missiles. China accounts for almost two-thirds of rare earth mining production and 92 percent of global refined output, according to the International Energy Agency. A Japanese deep-sea scientific drilling boat called the Chikyu will from January conduct a "test cruise" to retrieve ocean floor sediments that contain rare earth elements, said Shoichi Ishii, director of Japan's Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Programme. Live Events "The test to retrieve the sediments from 5,500 metres (3.4 miles) water depth is the first in the world," he told AFP. "Our goal... of this cruise is to test the function of all mining equipment," so the amount of sediment extracted "doesn't matter at all", Ishii added. The Chikyu will drill in Japanese economic waters around the remote island of Minami Torishima in the Pacific -- the easternmost point of Japan, also used as a military base. Japan's Nikkei business daily reported that the mission aims to extract 35 tonnes of mud from the sea floor over around three weeks. Each tonne is expected to contain around two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of rare earth minerals, which are often used to make magnets that are essential in modern electronics . Deep-sea mining has become a geopolitical flashpoint, with anxiety growing over a push by US President Donald Trump to fast-track the practice in international waters. Beijing has since April required licences to export rare earths from China, a move seen as retaliation for US curbs on the import of Chinese goods. Environmental campaigners warn that deep-sea mining threatens marine ecosystems and will disrupt the sea floor. The International Seabed Authority, which has jurisdiction over the ocean floor outside national waters, is meeting later this month to discuss a global code to regulate mining in the ocean depths.
India Today
9 hours ago
- India Today
One year on this newly discovered plant is just seven days on Earth
Astronomers have discovered a new planet, which is so close to its star that one year lasts just seven days. The planet completes one revolution around the Sun in just seven team found that the planet, dubbed HIP 67522 b, orbits its parent star so tightly that it appears to cause frequent flares from the star's surface, heating and inflating the planet's new planet was discovered by a team of scientists from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, led by Ekaterina Ilin of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy. They used space-borne telescopes, Nasa's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and the European Space Agency's CHaracterising ExoPlanets Telescope (CHEOPS), to track flares on the star. This is the first-ever evidence for a 'planet with a death wish'. Though it was theorised to be possible since the nineties, the flares seen in this research are around 100 times more energetic than expected. Astronomers using the European Space Agency's Cheops mission have caught a clingy exoplanet that seems to be triggering flares of radiation from the star it orbits. (Photo: ESA) advertisementThe planet is orbiting a star named HIP 67522, which was known to be just slightly larger and cooler than our own host star, the Sun. But while the Sun is a middle-aged 4.5-billion-year-old, HIP 67522 is a fresh-faced 17-million-year-old. It bears two planets."The star and the planet form a powerful but likely destructive bond. In a manner not yet fully understood, the planet hooks into the star's magnetic field, triggering flares on the star's surface; the flares whiplash energy back to the planet. Combined with other high-energy radiation from the star, the flare-induced heating appears to have increased the already steep inflation of the planet's atmosphere," Nasa said in a being bombarded with so much high-energy radiation does not bode well for HIP 67522 b. The planet is similar in size to Jupiter but has the density of candy floss, making it one of the wispiest exoplanets ever found. Graphic: ESA Over time, the radiation is eroding away the planet's feathery atmosphere, meaning it is losing mass much faster than expected. In the next 100 million years, it could go from an almost Jupiter-sized planet to a much smaller Neptune-sized planet seems to be triggering particularly energetic flares. The waves it sends along the star's magnetic field lines kick off flares at specific moments. But the energy of the flares is much higher than the energy of the waves. We think that the waves are setting off explosions that are waiting to happen,' points out Ekaterina.- Ends
