By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
TOKYO/BRUSSELS (Worthy News) – Truth be told: It looks like an outsized donut. Yet the six-storey-high machine in a hangar in Naka, north of the Japanese capital, Tokyo, is billed as “the answer to humanity’s future energy needs.”
Enthusiasts call it the world’s most giant experimental nuclear fusion reactor in
operation. The “tokamak” vessel, which has now officially been inaugurated, is to contain swirling plasma heated up to 200 million degrees Celsius (360 million degrees Fahrenheit).
It is a joint project by the European Union and Japan and the forerunner for its big brother in France, the under-construction International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).
The goal of the reactor, with the arguably less inspiring name JT-60SA, is to investigate the feasibility of fusion as a safe, large-scale “and carbon-free source of net energy” – with more energy generated than is put into producing it.
Fusion differs from fission, the technique currently used in nuclear power plants, by fusing two atomic nuclei instead of splitting one, experts explain.
And unlike fission, fusion carries “no risk” of catastrophic nuclear accidents – like that seen in Fukushima in Japan in 2011 – and produces far less radioactive waste than current power plants, claim the project’s promoters.
PRESSURE ON SECTOR
It also comes amid pressure on the energy sector to find alternatives to fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas that climate-change-worriers say endanger the world.
The ultimate aim of both projects in Japan and France is to coax hydrogen nuclei inside to fuse into one heavier element, helium, releasing energy in the form of light and heat.
That process would be mimicking the process that takes place inside the Sun, according to experts familiar with the projects.
Sam Davis, deputy project leader for the JT-60SA, said the device would “bring us closer to fusion energy.”
“It’s the result of a collaboration between more than 500 scientists and engineers and more than 70 companies throughout Europe and Japan,” Davis said at the inauguration.
While it remains unclear when and if the $608 million reactor will prove to be the panacea for the world’s energy consumption requirements, those supporting it seem to believe it sets the standards for a new era under the Sun.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
The Trump administration has finalized a sweeping reciprocal trade agreement with Taiwan, confirming a 15 percent U.S. tariff rate on Taiwanese imports while securing broad new market access and purchase commitments for American goods.
Democrats are applauding White House border czar Tom Homan’s Thursday announcement that immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota will end next week.
Democrats in the U.S. Senate tanked the Homeland Security full-year funding bill in a last-ditch vote Thursday, all but guaranteeing a partial government shutdown starting Saturday.
Mourners in a remote Canadian town grappled Thursday with the aftermath of one of the country’s deadliest school shootings in decades, as families, survivors and leaders reacted to the tragedy that left eight victims — most of them children — dead, along with the 18-year-old suspect.
A gunman who opened fire at a school in southern Thailand’s Hat Yai city on Wednesday wounded a teacher and a student before being detained, authorities said, in a rare attack that sent students and staff into panic.
The Republican-led House of Representatives has passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, advancing legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo identification at the polls. The bill now heads to the Senate, where its future remains uncertain amid strong Democratic opposition.
Israel’s Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday that its advanced David’s Sling air and missile defense system has completed a series of complex modernized tests, a development officials say bolsters the country’s defensive posture as tensions with Iran escalate and the United States prepares military options that could include direct strikes.