• Question: How long do you think it will be before you can be able to have a big success with nuclear fusion? :)

    Asked by isla on 29 Nov 2021.
    • Photo: Charlie Boswell

      Charlie Boswell answered on 29 Nov 2021: last edited 29 Nov 2021 1:06 pm

      We’re already having lots of little successes – over the next couple of years we expect to set some new world records in our machine, JET! But the next really big success might come from a machine called ITER in France. People from all over the world are helping to build a really huge machine, much bigger than ours. We hope that they will be able to get more electricity out of the machine than they put in…. so, they will have shown that you can make extra electricity with fusion!

      ITER will be running properly by 2035.

    • Photo: Hermione Salter

      Hermione Salter answered on 6 Dec 2021:

      Great question, and there are a lot of different ways to look at it! Every day of research, I really do believe we get a step closer to solving all the little niggles that are currently holding us back!

      If we count success as ‘enough energy to put something onto the grid’, then I think currently all eyes should be taking a look at STEP, the big UK reactor we have been working on designing right here at UKAEA. This is a really exciting project, and is looking to be up and running by 2040.

      That said, as fusion gets more funding, more and more people are working on it, so maybe someone will have a brain wave sooner and come up with a great success we haven’t even considered yet! It really does feel like an exciting time to be working on fusion research 🙂

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