https://euro-fusion.org/eurofusion-news/dte3record/
Breaking New Ground: JET Tokamak’s Latest Fusion Energy Record Shows Mastery of Fusion Processes
This camera is in the visible range, so we can only see the relatively cold parts of the plasma, where it emits radiation in that visible range. Everywhere that we see the machine (iluminated by this visible light) there is actually hot plasma emitting in the UV and X-ray range.
Breaking New Ground: JET Tokamak’s Latest Fusion Energy Record Shows Mastery of Fusion Processes
Quote:In a major scientific achievement, European researchers at the Joint European Torus (JET) facility have set a new world energy record of 69 megajoules released in sustained and controlled fusion energy.As someone who focused, aligned, cleaned, power-cycled and kept the camera that filmed that plasma... I have to say, it's been a great trip!
The result came as part of an experimental campaign to verify operating scenarios for future fusion machines, under conditions as close as possible to those in ITER and future fusion power plants. The result was made possible through the dedication of the international team of scientists and engineers at JET and reflects the central role that JET has played in accelerating the development of fusion energy.
Deuterium-Tritium campaign
In September 2023, the EUROfusion consortium of fusion laboratories around Europe started an ambitious experimental campaign at the JET facility of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) in Culham, UK. Their goal: to test out operating scenarios extrapolated from small and medium size European devices to pave the way for the international ITER project and the fusion power plants to follow. JET is unique amongst present-day tokamak machines—which trap a donut-shaped cloud of hot, ionised fuel or plasma in a cage of magnetic fields—for its capability to work with the deuterium-tritium fuel that will form the basis of future fusion machines like ITER and the demonstration power plant DEMO.
Reproducible energy record
Using advanced scenarios to structure and control their plasma, the researchers set a new fusion energy record of 69.26 megajoules of heat released during a single pulse in JET. Released over six seconds from only 0.21 milligrams of fuel, the energy record equals the energy released from burning 2 kilograms of coal. The JET record is 20 times the amount of energy released in a recent shot at the U.S. National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in October 2023, which used a different approach to fusion to produce more energy than was absorbed by the fuel pellet. The new achievement by the EUROfusion team breaks their previous world records of 59 megajoules (2022) and 22.7 megajoules (1997), which were also set at JET. The scientists at JET were able to reliably reproduce the necessary fusion conditions for the new record in multiple experimental pulses, demonstrating the understanding and control they have achieved over the complex fusion processes.
This camera is in the visible range, so we can only see the relatively cold parts of the plasma, where it emits radiation in that visible range. Everywhere that we see the machine (iluminated by this visible light) there is actually hot plasma emitting in the UV and X-ray range.
