Scientists pursuing fusion energy have announced that they have found the key to addressing one of the greatest challenges to date.
According to CNN, for decades, nuclear fusion has been hailed as a clean energy source that is almost limitless and a game-changing solution to the climate crisis. However, until now, experts have only succeeded in synthesizing and maintaining fusion energy for a few seconds, facing numerous obstacles, including instability in the extremely complex fusion process.
Inside the JET tokamak, where large nuclear fusion experiments are conducted in the UK. (Photo: UK Atomic Energy Authority).
To generate fusion energy, the most common method involves using hydrogen isotopes as fuel and heating them to extremely high temperatures in a torus-shaped machine called a tokamak to produce plasma.
However, this plasma material needs to be controlled and is very prone to being “torn apart” if it is not protected within the strong magnetic field of the machine.
On February 21, in the journal Nature, researchers from Princeton University and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in the United States reported that they have discovered a way to use artificial intelligence (AI) to predict instabilities during the fusion energy process and prevent them from occurring in time.
After conducting experiments at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, the researchers found that the AI controller they developed could predict the likelihood of plasma being torn apart up to 300 milliseconds in advance. Without immediate intervention, the fusion reaction would abruptly end.
“These experiments lay the groundwork for using AI to address plasma instability, which has long been a challenge in achieving fusion energy,” a spokesperson from Princeton University stated.
Professor Egemen Kolemen, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at Princeton and co-author of the study, noted that these findings are certainly a step forward towards nuclear fusion. “Disruptions are one of the biggest barriers. We want a reactor to operate 24/7 for years without issues,” Professor Kolemen said.
Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the Sun and other stars, and is seen as a highly desirable form of clean energy. Experts have been working for decades to master this extremely complex process on Earth. If successful, nuclear fusion could generate immense energy with a tiny amount of fuel, producing no carbon emissions that contribute to global warming.
This process is in contrast to the nuclear fission reaction widely used today, which relies on splitting atoms.
In early February, scientists and engineers in the city of Oxford, UK, set a record for generating new nuclear fusion energy, maintaining 69 megajoules (equivalent to 19.1 kWh) of fusion energy for 5 seconds with 0.2 milligrams of input fuel. This amount of electricity is enough to power approximately 12,000 homes simultaneously.
Despite these promising advancements, fusion energy is still a long way from being commercially viable, falling short of the significant and sustainable emissions reduction goals needed to combat the worsening impacts of the climate crisis.
