Scientists at a nuclear fusion lab in the UK just broke the world record for the amount of energy produced in a single fusion reaction. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, editors talk with two experts—Livia Casali, assistant professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Angel Ibarra Sanchez, a research professor in fusion technology at the Centre for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research in Madrid, Spain—about what the development means and how long it may take before we can switch on the world’s first nuclear fusion power plant.
In early February, scientists at the Joint European Torus lab announced that they’d broken the world record for the amount of energy produced in a nuclear fusion experiment.
Casali says the latest result from JET confirms some of the choices made for the fusion reactors of the future, particularly around the materials used to line the inside walls of the tokomak. Read the full article and listen to the podcast on The Conversation.
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Lindsey Owen (865-974-6375, lowen8@utk.edu)