Full Title: Private fusion machines aim to beat massive global effort
Author(s): Daniel Clery
Publisher(s): Science
Publication Date: April 1, 2017
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
When finally complete in 2025, the $20 billion fusion reactor called ITER, rising near Cadarache in France, will be seven stories tall. Even then, nothing guarantees that it can hold nuclei together at temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius, inducing them to fuse and release energy. Now, a small U.K. company has unveiled a 2-metertall chamber that looks like an oversized beer keg and cost about £10 million to develop. Using a different reactor shape than ITER and, eventually, superconducting magnets, the company says it has a cheaper and faster path to an energy-producing fusion reaction