From MIT News: MIT and newly formed company launch novel approach to fusion power by David Chandler | MIT News Office
Goal is for research to produce a working pilot plant within 15 years.
Visualization of the proposed SPARC tokamak experiment. Using high-field magnets built with newly available high-temperature superconductors, this experiment would be the first controlled fusion plasma to produce net energy output. Visualization by Ken Filar, PSFC research affiliate
Progress toward the long-sought dream of fusion power — potentially an inexhaustible and zero-carbon source of energy — could be about to take a dramatic leap forward.
Development of this carbon-free, combustion-free source of energy is now on a faster track toward realization, thanks to a collaboration between MIT and a new private company,
Commonwealth Fusion Systems. CFS will join with MIT to carry out rapid,
staged research leading to a new generation of fusion experiments and
power plants based on advances in high-temperature superconductors —
work made possible by decades of federal government funding for basic
research.
CFS is announcing today that it has attracted an investment of $50
million in support of this effort from the Italian energy company Eni.
In addition, CFS continues to seek the support of additional investors.
CFS will fund fusion research at MIT as part of this collaboration, with
an ultimate goal of rapidly commercializing fusion energy and
establishing a new industry...
Full story: http://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-newly-formed-company-launch-novel-approach-fusion-power-0309
Also a good read: The Guardian view on nuclear fusion: a moment of truth/ Editorial
Quote from the article: One of the cliches of nuclear power research is that a commercial fusion reactor is only ever a few decades away – and always will be. So claims that the technology is on the “brink of being realised” by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a private company should be viewed sceptically. The MIT-led team say they have the “science, speed and scale” for a viable fusion reactor and believe it could be up and running within 15 years, just in time to combat climate change. The MIT scientists are all serious people and perhaps they are within spitting distance of one of science’s holy grails. But no one should hold their breath...
