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OnlinePoker

(5,725 posts)
Mon May 1, 2017, 05:29 PM May 2017

The UK Just Switched on an Ambitious Fusion Reactor - and It Works

Well, it turned on and there's a plasma blob. No fusion, yet.
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The UK's newest fusion reactor, ST40, was switched on last week, and has already managed to achieve 'first plasma' - successfully generating a scorching blob of electrically-charged gas (or plasma) within its core.

The aim is for the tokamak reactor to heat plasma up to 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit) by 2018 - seven times hotter than the centre of the Sun. That's the 'fusion' threshold, at which hydrogen atoms can begin to fuse into helium, unleashing limitless, clean energy in the process.

"Today is an important day for fusion energy development in the UK, and the world," said David Kingham, CEO of Tokamak Energy, the company behind ST40.
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-uk-has-just-switch-on-its-tokamak-nuclear-fusion-reactor

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The UK Just Switched on an Ambitious Fusion Reactor - and It Works (Original Post) OnlinePoker May 2017 OP
There goes the neighborhood... GliderGuider May 2017 #1
Why do they need to be hotter than the sun to achieve fusion? ProfessorPlum May 2017 #2
The pressure at the sun's core is over 100 billion Earth atmospheres nt GliderGuider May 2017 #3
That's a lot of pressure ProfessorPlum May 2017 #4

ProfessorPlum

(11,273 posts)
2. Why do they need to be hotter than the sun to achieve fusion?
Tue May 2, 2017, 04:14 PM
May 2017

The sun does it at sun temperatures.

Maybe it's also a pressure thing.

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