This giant magnet can raise a aircraft carrier – and possibly power the future

The most powerful impulse superconducting magnetic system ever built is already completed and will soon be part of the largest energy experiment in the world.

The system is the central solenoid of the International Thermational Experimental Reactor (ITER), which rises to a magnet, built and tested in the United States and is intended for southern France, where the international project assembles its giant tokamak. The magnetic system will serve as an electromagnetic “heart” of the reactor, strong enough –According to For iteration – to raise a fearsome aircraft carrier.

For the uninitiated: Tokamaks are merger -shaped vessels that contain overheated plasma for nuclear synthesis, the energy reaction that feeds stars like our sun. Tokamaks limit plasma by generating very strong magnetic fields, therefore the importance of the central solenoid of ITER.

ITER is dedicated to validation of nuclear synthesis As a viable source of energy, although none of the reactor exit will be used to power anything. ITER is just a gigantic and expensive technological demonstrator who is lifting more and more In fact, to overwhelm the “ON” switch to recreate the power of the sun here on Earth. It is an expansion cooperation involving over 30 countries, which aims to prove that the energy of merger – essentially, stabbing atoms together, until they produce different atoms, releasing huge amounts of energy in the process – can be harnessed and scaled into commercial viable and essentially infinite energy source.

The recently completed magnet system will not work alone. The central solenoid joins six massive poloidal magnets, built and delivered from Europe, China and Russia, forming a 3000 tonne (2721 tonnes) system of superconducts, cooled to -452.2 degrees Fahrenheit (-269 degrees Celsius). Together, the overly magnets will capture and form a burning plasma of 270 million degrees Fahrenheit (50 million degrees B) –Ten times the hot than the nucleus of the sun – while the nuclear nuclei merge and released the return of energy ten times.

Commercially viable synthesis The Grail with clean energy has long been and it is expected to generate the ITER settings to generate 500 megawatts of only 50 megawatts input. This type of power returns will mark the beginning of the self-supporting “burning plasma”-Makar that has a long way to this purpose.

Private companies are trying to demonstrate Smaller tokamak designs As a potential way to realize the future of merger, although no approach has had its breakthrough moment so far.

In 2022, the National Laboratory of the Ministry of Energy and Lawrence Livermore announced Net energy reinforcement in response to synthesis In the National ignition facility, even if this high water brand does not take into account the “wall power” used in the experiment, making it another gradual step in the marathon to viable power of synthesis rather than directly to the finish.

ITER is not just an experiment in physics – it is geopolitical flexible. Despite the tensions between the Member States, the project has delivered the construction of components and struck its construction goals in 2024 (the cooperation also launched a project for the synthesis of a private sector last year to share data and strengthen the goals of the research and development activity of the project). The United States has built the solenoid and supporting structure, Europe is engaged in the vacuum camera, Russia has provided the massive reactor and bus superconductors, while Korea, Japan, China and India have contributed to the vital parts of the Tokamak core.

“With ITER, we show that a sustainable energy future and a peaceful path ahead are possible,” says Pietro Barabashi, CEO of ITER, in collaboration releaseS Of course, ITER has not yet realized the part of the “sustainable energy future”, so you do not hold your breath for the peaceful future.

Now in its assembly phase, it builds steam to its actual goals – a slight increase in inertia from the steps of cooperation in the production of its constituents. If it works, this magnetized machine can be an waterfront to an energy future without carbon-if it does not contribute to the power supply.