Hotter than the centre of the Sun – UK company's fusion reactor hits 15m degrees

A UK company claimed it has “paved the way for commercial fusion energy” after its prototype reactor reached temperatures of 15,000,000°C – hotter than the centre of the Sun.

Tokamak Energy achieved the milestone with its ST40 reactor, ahead of planned industrial-scale energy generation by 2025. The company used spherical tokamaks – devices that use powerful magnetic fields to contain hot plasma – with the latest generation of high-temperature superconducting magnets to reach the incredibly high temperatures.

The reactor used a technique known as merging compression, which releases energy when rings of plasma crash together and their magnetic fields reconfigure. The process relies on putting high electric currents through internal coils of the reactor, which requires thousands of amps in seconds. It is a complex electrical engineering process that also places high demands on the mechanical engineering of the whole system.

The team hope to reach temperatures necessary for controlled fusion, which could provide an attractive alternative to fossil fuels.

“The world needs abundant, controllable, clean energy,” said co-founder Dr David Kingham. “Fusion is a major challenge, but one that must be tackled. We believe that with collaboration, dedication and investment, fusion will be the best means of achieving deep decarbonisation of the global energy supply in the 2030s and beyond.”

Tokamak Energy grew out of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire. The company said its approach is validated by extensive, peer-reviewed research and challenges the conventional view that tokamaks need to be large to generate high energy gain.

“Reaching 15m degrees is yet another indicator of the progress at Tokamak Energy and a further validation of our approach,” said CEO Jonathan Carling. “Our aim is to make fusion energy a commercial reality by 2030. We view the journey as a series of engineering challenges, raising additional investment on reaching each new milestone.”