MIT Plans To Build Nuclear Fusion Plant By 2033

Mallory Locklear reports via Engadget: MIT announced yesterday that it and Commonwealth Fusion Systems -- an MIT spinoff -- are working on a project that aims to make harvesting energy from nuclear fusion a reality within the next 15 years. The ultimate goal is to develop a 200-megawatt power plant. MIT also announced that Italian energy firm ENI has invested $50 million towards the project, $30 million of which will be applied to research and development at MIT over the next three years. MIT and CFS plan to use newly available superconducting materials to develop large electromagnets that can produce fields four-times stronger than any being used now. The stronger magnetic fields will allow for more power to be generated resulting in, importantly, positive net energy. The method will hopefully allow for cheaper and smaller reactors. The research team aims to develop a prototype reactor within the next 10 years, followed by a 200-megawatt pilot power plant.

Comments

Same people as did the Ask Slashdot in April 2012

[Sgs-Cruz]

FYI, the CEO of this new company (Bob Mumgaard) and CTO (Dan Brunner) helped answer the questions asked in the Ask MIT Fusion Researchers About Fusion Power in April 2012: https://hardware.slashdot.org/... Prof. Dennis Whyte and Dr. Martin Greenwald were also on that thread and are now core members of the founding team of the new startup (although they remain employed by MIT).

Re:Too little, too late

[ShanghaiBill]

Less polluting than fusion?

DT fusion emits copious neutrons that irradiate everything around the core. You can put a "lithium blanket" around the reactor, to absorb the neurons and breed more tritium, but you are not going to catch them all. Fusion is cleaner than fission, but still produces radioactive waste.

Fusion reactor waste management