Harnessing nuclear fusion, the process by which lighter atoms combine into heavier ones, has been a dream of researchers for generations: in theory, it could produce electricity without emitting greenhouse gases and, unlike nuclear fission, generate very little radioactive waste.
But making fusion work requires compressing hydrogen plasma fuel at extraordinarily high temperatures and pressures—and since no known material can withstand such temperatures, the fuel must be held in place by extremely powerful magnetic fields.
Now detailed reports by researchers at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) and the MIT spinout company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), published in a collection of six peer-reviewed papers in a special edition of IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity in March, confirm that a new type of magnet the team tested in 2021 could make an economically viable fusion device far more likely. MIT engineering professor Dennis Whyte—who recently stepped down as director of the PSFC—calls the successful test “the most important thing, in my opinion, in the last 30 years of fusion research.”
That's quite a statement.
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