Korea Institute of Energy Fusion announced KSTAR’s new recordDisclosure
Published 04/29/2024 11:42
The South Korean artificial sun, called KSTAR, broke its own record by managing to maintain a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius for 48 seconds during operations carried out between December 2023 and February 2024. The South Korea Institute of Energy Fusion Energia (KFE) announced the feat this month.
The ability to sustain operations in which plasma — known as the fourth state of matter — remains at extremely high temperatures for as long as possible is essential for fusion reactions to occur actively. This process is part of the development of energy through nuclear fusion.
The new tokamak results from FKE, called KSTAR, surpass the chamber’s 2021 record, when it maintained a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius for 30 seconds. The first time the tokamak reached the 100 million degree mark was in 2018. Tokamaks are chambers where plasma is confined to reach the conditions necessary for nuclear fusion.
According to KFE, the new record was made possible through an update to the tokamak’s diverters, which now use tungsten instead of carbon. Tungsten diverters showed only a 25% increase in surface temperature under similar heat loads.
The KFE’s ultimate goal is to reach 300 seconds of operation at a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius. To this end, the director of the KSTAR Research Center, Si-Woo Yoon says that the next steps are to improve heating performance and protect key technologies needed for operations.
The team intends to add new tungsten components to the tokamak. Another important point is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor KSTAR devices in real time.
Nuclear fusion for clean energy production
Nuclear fusion consists of crushing two atoms at the same time at very high speeds, in which scientists try to reproduce the reactions that take place inside the Sun. The elements of this reaction are transformed into electricity.
The search for nuclear fusion in laboratories around the world has been motivated by the possible advantages of this source, such as being clean, cheap and almost unlimited. There are no carbon emissions or generation of radioactive waste.
Other institutes have also managed to advance the promise of energy via nuclear fusion. Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California announced in December 2022 that, for the first time, a fusion reaction in the laboratory managed to produce more energy than needed to start it.
Months later, the laboratory said it had achieved an even greater gain in energy through nuclear fusion. However, a challenge still remains is how to make nuclear fusion a viable energy source.
