30 Years Later, This Big Boy Fusion Reactor Is Almost Ready to Turn On
Could nuclear fusion finally be right around the corner ... in 2035?
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, is a 30-year-old project started by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. With tens of billions of dollars on the line, this experimental tokamak fusion reactor—a nuclear fusion plasma reactor where extremely hot, charged plasma spins and generates virtually limitless energy—is one of a handful of extremely costly "miniature suns" around the world.
These reactors take years to get up to temperatures hot enough to induce nuclear fusion. Will they ever get there? In July 2019, Scientific American covered the unveiling of the base of the reactor setup: "The section recently installed—the cryostat base and lower cylinder—paves the way for the installation of the tokamak, the technology design chosen to house the powerful magnetic field that will encase the ultra-hot plasma fusion core."
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