Several different groups of scientists are hard at work trying to unlock the key to nuclear fusion, sometimes referred to as the "holy grail" of clean energy. Among the largest projects is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France, which just achieved a new milestone after receiving its fourth and final vacuum vessel sector from Hyundai Heavy Industries, Interesting Engineering reported.
ITER, which has been described by its own communications team as "arguably the most complex machine ever designed," is now one step closer to delivering virtually unlimited amounts of clean energy.
While nuclear power plants already exist, those plants rely on a process called nuclear fission, which is when atoms are split apart. This produces a lot of radioactive waste, among other problems. Nuclear fusion, on the other hand, is what happens when atoms slam together, similar to the process that powers the sun. It would produce no long-lived radioactive waste and create energy more efficiently.
The importance of the vacuum vessel sector provided by Hyundai is that it will improve radiation shielding and plasma stability, among other things, per Interesting Engineering.
"In a tokamak device, the larger the vacuum chamber volume, the easier it is to confine the plasma and achieve the type of high energy regime that will produce significant fusion power," ITER wrote on its website. "The ITER vacuum vessel, with an interior volume of 1,400 m³, will provide an absolutely unique experimental arena for fusion physicists: the volume of the plasma contained in the centre of the vessel (840 m³) is fully six times larger than that of the largest operating tokamak in the world today."
There are multiple groups working toward fusion. One group claims its reactor can power a major U.S. city with just three soda cans' worth of fuel. The UK's Tokamak Energy group says its device can power 70,000 homes. And Princeton scientists recently made a massive breakthrough in the hunt for the clean energy source.
While that might all be a bit dense and technical for the non-nuclear scientists among us, the upshot is that it could unlock the key to our society being able to move past the dirty energy sources like gas and oil that are polluting our environment and overheating our planet.
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