The reactor that can make nuclear fusion possible by 2030
By 2030, we had a nuclear fusion reactor. This was reported by the Californian startup Tae Technologies, which has just received funding from Google too
(Photo: Tae Technologies) The road to nuclear fusion, despite the numerous projects underway, still seems very long. Yet research into how to mimic the way the sun and stars produce energy seems to have taken a huge step forward today. The Californian startup Tae Technologies, founded in 1998 and specializing in the development of fusion technologies, has just stated that it will have a nuclear fusion power plant by 2030, announcing a date that puts it years ahead of many other companies. br>Nuclear fusion, we recall, is a very important weapon for obtaining enormous quantities of clean energy and finally managing to mitigate global warming: a fusion power plant, in fact, does not burn fossil fuels and does not produce greenhouse gas emissions and radioactive waste. In practice, the reaction consists in the fusion of different hydrogen isotopes at very high temperatures, in a process that leads the element to lose electrons and form the ion plasma, to produce immense quantities of energy and helium atoms (waste of reaction), without the need for additional energy inputs.
The Californian company, which detaches all other startups for the volume of investments, also having Google behind it, has raised 880 million dollars in funding for its reactor, which does not work as a traditional tokamak, that is, the donut-shaped reactor inside which the fusion reaction takes place, but uses a mechanism that produces and confines the plasma. "Plasma is a slime substance and the challenge is precisely to contain it," says the company. Researchers, in fact, use elements such as hydrogen and boron for the reaction in a special reactor (Cbfr), which, when the gas is heated, leads to the formation of two plasma rings which are then held together.
Lo exploiting fusion energy for electricity on an industrial scale, the researchers point out, requires the confinement of the plasma at temperatures "hot enough" for a period of time "long enough" to allow fusion reactions. And the current Tae reactor, called Norman, has almost doubled its set goals, demonstrating constant performance over 600 tests per month, reaching over 50 million degrees required to reach that "hot enough". "By generating such stable high-temperature plasma, Tae has now validated that the company's unique approach can adapt to the conditions needed for an economically viable fusion power plant by the end of the decade." It will require, the company adds, broader scientific knowledge on "plasma behavior, artificial intelligence, machine learning, faster electronics, improved diagnostics, shorter feedback loops, materials science: the list goes on. Tae predicts that this time period will be by the end of the decade ”.
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