Young Reporter: The Past/Present/Future of Fusion, Wilfred Newell RGS
The JET facility, in Culham, Oxfordshire, ended experiments in December of 2023. The reason why it’s still so important is that JET was not only a world leader in fusion experiments, but its legacy lives on. Fusion is the holy grail of producing clean energy and at this moment in time, is our only chance for mitigating climate change (there’s also fission, but that’s another article). At the end of its operating lifespan in September 2023, JET set the current fusion record, 69 megajoules of energy produced in a controlled reaction. This is the same amount of energy you would get from burning 2 kilograms of coal, but from using just 0.21 milligrams of fuel, which is utterly phenomenal. This was a breakthrough on British soil (though the project itself is an EU collaboration). It’s nice to know that the UK is in the limelight once more.
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The JET facility, in Culham, Oxfordshire, ended experiments in December of 2023. The reason why it’s still so important is that JET was not only a world leader in fusion experiments, but its legacy lives on. Fusion is the holy grail of producing clean energy and at this moment in time, is our only chance for mitigating climate change (there’s also fission, but that’s another article). At the end of its operating lifespan in September 2023, JET set the current fusion record, 69 megajoules of energy produced in a controlled reaction. This is the same amount of energy you would get from burning 2 kilograms of coal, but from using just 0.21 milligrams of fuel, which is utterly phenomenal. This was a breakthrough on British soil (though the project itself is an EU collaboration). It’s nice to know that the UK is in the limelight once more.
