A tokamak is a doughnut-shaped container that holds a burning plasma fueled by fusion reactions.
Nuclear fusion occurs naturallyits the reaction that powers starsbut not on Earth.
However,physicists and engineers can induce nuclear fusionin laboratory controls,in tokamaksandusing lasers.
The Tokamak Building at ITER in 2020.Photo: CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU/AFP (Getty Images)
Silly as it sounds, thats not the hard part.
Tokamaks use magnets to contain and control their plasmas.
The updated baseline schedule will be publicly announced in apress conferencethis Wednesday, July 3.
An illustration of a human in front of ITER’s toroidal field coils around the tokamak vacuum vessel.Illustration:ITER
ITER wasintroducedby Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in 1985, though the project was only sited in 2005.
Nearly 20 years later, experiments have yet to be hosted in the tokamak.
A wry truismso rehashed its a clicheholds that nuclear fusion as an energy source is always 50 years away.
ITER is intended to prove fusion powers technological feasibility, but importantly not its economic viability.
But itwill not come soon enoughto addressthe worsening climate crisis.
More:Will Nuclear Fusion Ever Power the World?
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