Fusion Reactor Creates Plasma, Unlimited Clean Energy Possible In A Few Years

In the worlds of both science fiction and real-world science, fusion energy has been a topic of considerable enthusiasm and dismay. Everybody wants it but it’s still out of reach. That is until a company in the UK created a fusion reactor that just achieved First Plasma. According to the reactor’s creators, fusion energy could only be years away instead of decades.

The basic idea behind a fusion reactor is to generate heat with a high enough temperature that it can actually fuse hydrogen atoms, thus allowing it to self-sustain. This would then produce unlimited clean energy, which the world badly needs.

A company called Tokamak Energy was the first to successfully produce First Plasma with its reactor ST40, which is basically an electrically-charged, extremely hot gas. This just puts humanity one step closer to achieving the milestone of completely sustainable energy, Futurism reports.

Following this breakthrough, the company is working on increasing the temperature that its reactor can produce, with the goal being 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit). That’s as hot as the center of the sun, which the company hopes to reach this year.

Tokamak won’t be stopping there, however, as it needs to reach at least 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit). That’s the required temperature in order to have a self-sustaining fusion reactor. In a press release released last week, Tokamak Energy CEO David Kingham explained how huge of an achievement this was for both the company and for the world in general.

“Today is an important day for fusion energy development in the UK, and the world,” Kingham said. “We are unveiling the first world-class controlled fusion device to have been designed, built, and operated by a private venture. The ST40 is a machine that will show fusion temperatures – 100 million degrees – are possible in compact, cost-effective reactors. This will allow fusion power to be achieved in years, not decades.”