A twisting ribbon of hydrogen gas, many times hotter than the surface of the sun, has given scientists a tentative glimpse of the future of controlled nuclear fusion—a so-far theoretical source of relatively “clean” and abundant energy that would be effectively fueled by seawater.
The ribbon was a plasma inside Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X, an advanced fusion reactor that set a record last May by magnetically “bottling up” the superheated plasma for a whopping 43 seconds. That’s many times longer than the device had achieved before.
It’s often joked that fusion is only 30 years away—and always will be. But the latest results indicate that scientists and engineers are finally gaining on that prediction. “I think it’s probably now about 15 to 20 years [away],” says University of Cambridge nuclear engineer Tony Roulstone, who wasn’t involved in the Wendelstein experiments. “The superconducting magnets [that the researchers are using to contain the plasma] are making the difference.”
And the latest Wendelstein result, while promising, has now been countered by British researchers. They say the large Joint European Torus (JET) fusion reactor near Oxford, England, achieved even longer containment times of up to 60 seconds in final experiments before its retirement in December 2023. These results have been kept quiet until now but are due to be published in a scientific journal soon.
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