Oxfordshire-based Tokamak Energy has fired up its latest fusion reactor for the first time and aims to reach temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius next year.
The ST40 (© Tokamak Energy)
Known as the ST40, the reactor represents the third of five stages in the company’s plan to deliver fusion energy to the grid by 2030. Controlled fusion requires temperatures in excess of 100 million (m)°C, but this has never been achieved by a privately funded company. To reach that goal, Tokamak Energy is focusing on compact, spherical tokamak reactors, as it believes they are quicker to develop and offer the quickest route to commercial fusion power.
“Today is an important day for fusion energy development in the UK, and the world,” said Dr David Kingham, CEO of Tokamak Energy. “We are unveiling the first world-class controlled fusion device to have been designed, built and operated by a private venture. The ST40 is a machine that will show fusion temperatures – 100 million degrees – are possible in compact, cost-effective reactors. This will allow fusion power to be achieved in years, not decades.”
The next steps in the ST40’s development will see the reactor’s magnetic coils commissioned and installed. These are crucial for containing the super-heated plasma and pushing towards fusion temperatures. By Autumn 2017, the company hopes to have produced a plasma temperature of 15m°C, with 100m°C reached at some point in 2018. Longer term, Tokamak Energy is aiming to deliver its first fusion electricity by 2025, with commercial power available via the grid five years later.
“We will still need significant investment, many academic and industrial collaborations, dedicated and creative engineers and scientists, and an excellent supply chain,” said Kingham.
Dr David Kingham (© Tokamak Energy)
“Our approach continues to be to break the journey down into a series of engineering challenges, raising additional investment on reaching each new milestone. We are already half-way to the goal of fusion energy; with hard work we will deliver fusion power at commercial scale by 2030.”
Temperatures of 100m K are beyond my understanding and I’ve visited CERN (failed to understand that too).
The sun is at about 5,500 K at the surface but I guess sub-surface fusion temperatures must be a lot higher. At 100m C the velocities of particles must be close to speed of light, at CERN these particles are contained in cryogenically cooled tubes.
Hope that we will be able to learn more about the work at Tokamak as the engineering challenges are fascinating and the physics far beyond my level!
“The sun is at about 5,500 K at the surface but I guess sub-surface fusion temperatures must be a lot higher”. Not necessarily since the Sun’s atmosphere is hotter than its surface. This suggests an inverted temperature gradient. There are numerous theories to account for this ‘anomaly’, but it means there is an issue with the current model.
My sole [do I mean that or soul?]concern is that those who are apparently suitable persons to make decisions about the support -via HMG or private funding- for this type of technology….and who have the posts, positions and power to give that support (and indeed the meja who might report on such) do not have the slightest idea about the science or technology which is behind such.
So nothing new there! We have now thousands of patent agents trying to put into words, words that should surely mean the same to two patent lawyers, let alone the technologists who created the ideas for such advances (without an argument -conducted of course at someone else’s expense) which they just do not have any real idea of what in happening: definitely the blind leading the cor-blimy.
I just wish I had known about tokamak research when I was a child it fascinates me and I would have loved to of been involved good luck I look forward to watching you achieve your goal
I believe we are on the verge of a revolution in science in the near future. Just imagine how this new technology will add not only clean power to the grid, but provide a us with a new era growth. This may contribute to help reduce climate change and perhaps reduce local conflict as we wean our self’s off of fossil fuel. I see a bright future taking shape for mankind !
I can see plenty of opportunities for supplying power to operate and maintain the device, but how can we get energy out from it?
Conventional ring Tokamak seems to be a very costly and complicated to create a container for fusioning plasma. The Oxford group is potentially able to make a breakthrough by employing a radically different approach to ITER.