In October this year JT-60SA was test-fired for the first time, obtaining the first plasma in the tests. On December 1, after several weeks of work, this device became the world’s first such large thermonuclear fusion reactor to be fully operational. This is a huge breakthrough in the pursuit of completely clean and (in the future) relatively cheap energy.
The largest tokamak in the world has been launched. The revolution of the century is coming
On its website, the European Commission boasts that thanks to the joint efforts of the EU and Japan, the largest and most advanced tokamak thermonuclear reactor in the world was launched. JT-60SA is a superconducting fusion reactor (tokamak type), which triggers processes resembling those that take place in the core of the Sun (their effect in stars is the emission of heat and light).
This is, of course, about the phenomenon of thermonuclear reaction (fusion), i.e. the process of fusing the nuclei of two lighter elements (e.g. hydrogen) into one heavier one (e.g. helium) at extremely high temperatures (of the order of millions or even hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius). A side effect of this phenomenon is a significant amount of energy, which – in the case of reactors on Earth – we can use to obtain heat or electricity.
JT-60SA is located in a hangar in Naka, Japan (near Tokyo), and its heart resembles the shape of a giant donut. Inside the chamber, plasma heated to approximately 200 million degrees Celsius moves around.
The goals of the construction of the JT-60SA reactor, which has been ongoing for the last decade, are purely scientific for now. Researchers want to test the operation of the tokamak and thermonuclear fusion itself as a safe and completely clean source of energy for the planet, including electricity. The experience gained during the JT-60SA project is then to be used in the construction and launch of ITER, an even larger, international project being worked on by the European Union, Japan and several other countries – including China, USA, Switzerland and Great Britain.
The launch of the reactor is another step towards harnessing the process of thermonuclear fusion and using it for purposes needed by humanity. The main obstacle so far is that to trigger fusion, the matter needs to be heated to extreme values, which in itself is extremely energy-intensive. Only in December 2022, physicists, among others, from the USA and Great Britain announced a breakthrough in this field, achieving for the first time a real (but still small) surplus of energy obtained in this process.
Some scientists consider thermonuclear fusion to be the future of clean energy in the world. It is believed that the development of thermonuclear fusion reactors ready for practical use will usher in an energy revolution comparable to the industrial revolution of the 18th century.
Source: Gazeta
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