{"id":57155,"date":"2017-05-01T14:42:29","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T21:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/the-uk-just-switched-on-an-ambitious-fusion-reactor"},"modified":"2017-05-01T14:42:29","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T21:42:29","slug":"the-uk-just-switched-on-an-ambitious-fusion-reactor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/the-uk-just-switched-on-an-ambitious-fusion-reactor","title":{"rendered":"The UK Just Switched on an Ambitious Fusion Reactor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/the-uk-just-switched-on-an-ambitious-fusion-reactor.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Maybe 10 years away instead of 20?<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>The UK\u2019s newest fusion reactor, ST40, was switched on last week, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tokamakenergy.co.uk\/first-plasma-in-new-reactor-brings-the-uk-a-big-step-closer-to-fusion-energy\/\">has already managed<\/a> to achieve \u2018first plasma\u2019 \u2014 successfully generating a scorching blob of electrically-charged gas (or plasma) within its core.<\/p>\n<p>The aim is for the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tokamak\">tokamak reactor<\/a> to heat plasma up to 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit) by 2018 \u2014 seven times hotter than the centre of the Sun. That\u2019s the \u2018fusion\u2019 threshold, at which hydrogen atoms can begin to fuse into helium, unleashing limitless, clean energy in the process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday is an important day for fusion energy development in the UK, and the world,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tokamakenergy.co.uk\/first-plasma-in-new-reactor-brings-the-uk-a-big-step-closer-to-fusion-energy\/\">said David Kingham<\/a>, CEO of Tokamak Energy, the company behind ST40.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/the-uk-has-just-switch-on-its-tokamak-nuclear-fusion-reactor\">http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/the-uk-has-just-switch-on-its-to...on-reactor<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe 10 years away instead of 20? The UK\u2019s newest fusion reactor, ST40, was switched on last week, and has already managed to achieve \u2018first plasma\u2019 \u2014 successfully generating a scorching blob of electrically-charged gas (or plasma) within its core. The aim is for the tokamak reactor to heat plasma up to 100 million degrees [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":388,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nuclear-energy","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/388"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}