Swiss Fusion Reactor Turns 30 Years Old
Published: Thursday, Sep 21st 2023, 13:40
Updated At: Friday, Oct 13th 2023, 14:12
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The Swiss Plasma Center at the EPFL in Lausanne celebrated the 30th birthday of their Tokamak, a nuclear fusion reactor. The goal of the scientists is to produce clean energy from the reactor. To do this, they heat a gas to over 100 million degrees Celsius, transforming it into plasma. This allows particles to overcome their electrical repulsion and fuse into heavier nuclei such as helium, releasing huge amounts of energy. The Tokamak is a large metal ring surrounded by electromagnets, which keep the hot plasma in the chamber and suspended. The reactor was built before the internet era and has become one of the most important research facilities for nuclear fusion in Europe. It is remarkable for a country the size of Switzerland to have such an experimental facility.
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