The European consortium EUROfusion will present on Tuesday, in Brussels, the project of an experimental nuclear fusion energy plant, DEMO, which is supposed to start operating in the middle of this century.
“This unique nuclear fusion device, the first of its kind, will be operational around the middle of this century and will show an output of 300 MW to 500 MW. [megawatts] of electricity generated by nuclear fusion, clean and safe energy, and its connection to the grid,” reads a statement issued by the European consortium about the new plant.
On Tuesday, the European Fusion Energy Research Consortium, EUROfusion, will announce, “the start of conceptual design activities for the first European fusion energy demonstration plant”, as well as its research plan that will enable the global ITER fusion experiment. [reator de fusão nuclear a ser construído em França]A promising start to work.
“Fusion is the process that powers stars like our sun and it promises a clean, safe, virtually unlimited long-term energy source here on Earth. Fusion energy will generate massive amounts of energy from just a few grams of the abundant fuel found around the world.”
Nuclear fusion – the joining of atomic nuclei – is the reverse process of what is the basis of current nuclear reactors, nuclear fission – the separation of atomic nuclei from radioactive elements.
British scientists said in early February that nuclear fusion energy production had reached previously unrecorded levels, a step toward operating the world’s largest reactor in France.
A team from the Joint European Fusion Experiment (JET) Reactor, located near Oxford, generated 59 megajoules of nuclear fusion energy in 5 seconds, in December 2021, more than double the last record, set in 1997, according to the company. UK Atomic. Energy Authority.
This test, in which European researchers, including Portuguese, took part, is intended to prepare for the operation of the world’s largest experimental nuclear fusion reactor, which is being built in France.
The Nuclear Energy Authority said in a statement that the results “are the clearest evidence of the potential of fusion to provide sustainable energy.”
Each year, about 350 scientists from the European Union, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Ukraine participate in the tests conducted at the JET fusion reactor.
Nuclear fusion occurs when the deuterium and tritium isotopes of hydrogen are heated, by very strong magnetic fields, to a temperature 10 times higher than the center of the sun to form plasma, the state of matter in which the atomic nuclei of hydrogen collide. They fuse into heavier helium atoms, releasing large amounts of energy without radiation.
Nuclear fusion has a power of four million times that of coal, oil or gas.
ITER will be ready to produce 500 MW for periods of 400 to 600 seconds and should start operating, in the first phase, between 2026 and 2027.
The challenge for researchers is to create a reactor that can achieve a sustainable fusion reaction.
Portugal participates in EUROfusion – a consortium that directly supports the ITER experiment – through the Institute for Plasma and Nuclear Fusion of the Polytechnic Institute, which has joint laboratory status.
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