Nuclear fusion is probably still decades away, but frequent significant advances show that the idea is moving from being a physics problem to an engineering one
at Seoul National University in South Korea and his colleagues have succeeded in running a reaction at the extremely high temperatures that will be required for a viable reactor, and keeping the hot, ionised state of matter that is created within the device stable for 30 seconds.Controlling this so-called plasma is vital. If it touches the walls of the reactor, it rapidly cools, stifling the reaction and causing significant damage to the chamber that holds it.
Dominic Power at Imperial College London says that to increase the energy produced by a reactor, you can make plasma really hot, make it really dense or increase confinement time. The reaction was stopped after 30 seconds only because of limitations with hardware, and longer periods should be possible in future. KSTAR has now shut down for upgrades, with carbon components on the wall of the reactor being replaced with tungsten, which Na says will improve the reproducibility of experiments.
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