Scientists in Germany said they had reached a milestone in a quest to derive energy from nuclear fusion, billed as a potentially limitless, safe and cheap source.
Nuclear fusion entails fusing atoms together to generate energy - a process similar to that in the Sun -as opposed to nuclear fission, where atoms are split, which entails worries over safety and long-term waste.
After spending a billion euros (US$1.1 billion) and nine years’ construction work, physicists working on a German project called the “stellarator” said they had briefly generated a super-heated helium plasma inside a vessel - a key point in the experimental process.
Technical director Hans-Stephan Bosch with computer images showing the first plasma from the Wendelstein 7-X nuclear fusion research centre on Wednesday. Photo: EPA
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“We're very satisfied,” said Hans-Stephan Bosch at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald.
“Everything went according to plan.”
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For all its promise, nuclear fusion has proven elusive and highly costly to achieve.
The idea is to heat atoms to temperatures of more than 100 million degrees Celsius (212 million degrees Fahrenheit) so that their nuclei fuse.
