British researchers have reported a notable advance in thermonuclear energy research conducted at the Joint European Torus facilities near Oxford. The information was communicated by Tech Xplore, citing data from the Agence France-Presse news agency.
In a controlled test, the team achieved a release of 69 megajoules over a five second interval using a minute amount of fuel. The experiment relied on 0.2 milligrams of fuel, and this result surpasses the previous peak reached in 2022, which was 10 megajoules. The UK Atomic Energy Authority highlighted that the 69 megajoules could illuminate about 41,000 homes for five seconds, illustrating the scale of energy involved in a brief pulse.
Even with this increase, the reaction did not yield more energy than was required to initiate it, underscoring the continuing challenge of achieving a net gain in energy production in this setup.
JET operates as a tokamak, a type of fusion reactor featuring a doughnut shaped chamber. Inside, tiny granules containing deuterium and tritium—the heavy isotopes of hydrogen—are introduced and then heated to temperatures far exceeding the core of the Sun. The resulting plasma is confined by strong magnetic fields, and the extreme heat provokes a release of energy on a scale vastly greater than the burning of traditional fossil fuels. This energy release, when translated into comparable everyday terms, far surpasses what would be produced by burning coal, oil, or gas to achieve the same fuel mass.
Historically, the field has seen earlier efforts to ignite thermonuclear reactions, including the development of an initial laser ignition concept often described as a spark plug for fusion devices. The ongoing work at JET continues to refine our understanding of achieving sustained and controlled fusion energy, an essential milestone on the path toward practical fusion power that could one day contribute to a low carbon energy mix for Europe and beyond. Attribution: Tech Xplore summarizing AFP reports on JET experiments.