A new generation fusion reactor project that succeeds in creating and confining a plasma that produces net fusion energy is going ahead, with the start of its construction set for June 2021. SPARC consists of a tokamak - a toroidal chamber with coils magnetic - compact, high-field combustion, which is currently being designed by a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Commonwealth Fusion Systems. There have been no unexpected impediments or surprises, and the remaining challenges appear to be manageable. This lays a solid foundation for the operation of the device once built. SPARC is planned to be the first experimental device to achieve a "fiery plasma," that is, a self-sustaining fusion reaction in which different isotopes of the element hydrogen fuse to form helium, without the need for any additional energy input. Studying the behavior of this flaming plasma, something never before seen on Earth in a controlled manner, is considered crucial information for developing the next step, a working prototype of a practical and energy-generating power plant. Such fusion power plants could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the power generation sector, one of the main sources of these emissions globally.
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By: Alejandro Sebastián Von Heguer, National University of Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires. Source: Martin Greenwald, deputy director of the MIT Center for Plasma Science and Fusion.
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