Commercial nuclear fusion has gone from science fiction to science fact in less than a decade. Even well-informed members of the West\u2019s political class are mostly unaware of the quantum leap in superconductors, lasers, and advanced materials suddenly changing the economics of fusion power.<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s First Light Fusion announced last week that it had broken the world record for pressure at the Sandia National Laboratories in the US, pushing the boundary to 1.85 terapascal, five times the pressure at the core of the Earth.<\/p>\n
Days earlier, a clutch of peer-reviewed papers confirmed that Commonwealth Fusion Systems near Boston had broken the world record for a large-scale magnet with a field strength of 20 tesla using the latest high-temperature superconducting technology. This exceeds the threshold necessary for producing net energy, or a \u201cQ factor\u201d, above 1.0.<\/p>\n
\u201cOvernight, it basically changed the cost per watt of a fusion reactor by a factor of almost 40,\u201d said Professor Dennis Whyte, plasma doyen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nuclear fusion for the grid is coming much sooner than you think https:\/\/t.co\/P26xF1Q4mT<\/a><\/p>\n — Dr. Daniel Stelter (@thinkBTO) March 13, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n