Produced filmed and edited by Petros Gioumpasis. Reported by Simon Mundy. Additional footage by ITER, NASA, Tokamak Energy Getty, Reuters, BVE, CFS. Graphics by Rory Griffiths, Ian Bott and Russell Birkett. Post production by CodaAll the stars that shine at night are driven by fusion energy. It's what powers the universe.
The idea when it was formed was to bring cultures and nations that have been, in the past, sometimes at odds with each other together. In fact, it was born between Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev. And then more parties, more members joined. So it is a place of peace in some sense. This being said, of course, there is also some complexity coming with an international collaboration with having, say, some degree of politics associated, OK, some compromises must be made.
Instead, nuclear fusion involves smashing atoms into each other with such force that they fuse, releasing enormous amounts of energy in the process. To make energy from all this, we need a machine, a machine that can reproduce the incredible power of the process that powers the sun within a single building here on Earth. The most popular model being developed by scientists at ITER and elsewhere is the tokamak, a term dreamed up by Soviet scientists in the 1950s. It describes a doghnut-shaped structure with very powerful magnets known as superconductors in the middle and around the outside.
It's the first time it has ever been done in a laboratory anywhere in the world. Simply put, this is one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century. In December, 2022, scientists at a US government facility announced that they had achieved that milestone for the first time in history. Instead of a tokamak, the team at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory took a very different approach to fusion.
At ITER, scientists like Valentina Nikolaeva are hoping that after so many years of work they may yet achieve the elusive goal of net energy gain in a way that would provide a blueprint for fusion power plants that could be built in large numbers, generating vast amounts of energy for households and businesses all over the world. Her decision to work in nuclear physics was inspired by her father who took part in the response to the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986.
Spoiler: far
Nuclear fusion, the energy source that's always just around the corner.
lexhoogduin Nowhere near. .. ... Take an other 60 years.