Rise and Shine — KFE Has Set a New Artificial Sun Record
Written by Swathi Ram, Edited by Olivia Lu
April showers are meant to bring May flowers, but it seems like we are heading towards a new kind of April. According to KOIN 6, Tuesday April 2nd was the warmest day of the year in Portland, and we were just two degrees short of breaking the Rose City record for the warmest April 2nd ever reported. Although I, like many other Oregonians tired of the gloom, was excited to see the sun, the threat of climate change is becoming more and more apparent and non-negligible. Climate change is a result of an over-abundance of greenhouse gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere. As the function of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is to capture heat from the sun, too much heat is captured, thus warming the Earth too much.
Scientists have searched for potential “solutions” for decades, and it seems as though the majority of the world has made a decision; to eliminate the burning of fossil fuels (which release an astronomical amount of greenhouse gasses). However, as so many sectors run on fossil fuels, for society to continue to function at its current level, we would need an alternative power source. There is wind, solar, and hydro power, but all of these power sources are dependent on weather and geography, making them unreliable. Talk of a new type of power source has been circulating, and some recent breakthroughs may make this talk our new reality.
Nuclear power is a clean power source with two variations, fission and fusion. Nuclear fission occurs when the nucleus of a radioactive element is so unstable that it splits into two or more parts, releasing a huge amount of energy that can be converted into electricity. Nuclear fission is already a functioning power source, and according to the IAEA, it amounts to nearly one third of the world’s clean electricity. However, it does produce radioactive nuclear waste. Radioactive accidents and long-term waste storage are two major concerns.
Conversely, nuclear fusion does not create nuclear waste, and does produce large amounts of energy. Nuclear fusion is a reaction that causes two smaller atoms to fuse together and create a larger atom, simultaneously releasing an abundance of energy (that can be converted to electricity). This reaction is the energy source of all stars, and is the reason for their “shine.”
Nuclear fusion is achieved on Earth using a tokamak, a donut shaped reactor that heats up its contents (hydrogen isotopes) until they become a high density plasma (a partially ionized gas considered the fourth state of matter). Once the plasma is at a high temperature, a fusion reaction can occur.
Sustaining plasma at a high temperature is vital, but extremely difficult, because it is very unstable. In 2021, scientists at the Korean Institute of Fusion Energy (KFE) were able to sustain plasma at temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius (seven times hotter than the sun’s core) for 30 seconds in KSTAR, KFE’s powerful tokamak, also known as “artificial sun”. After months of research, and experimentation from December 2023 to February 2024, scientists at KFE made another huge advancement. By making a few small changes to the system, including changing the machine’s “diverters,” devices that remove heat and contaminants from the reaction. Shifting from carbon to tungsten, KSTAR was able to sustain the high density plasma at temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius for 48 seconds, breaking the old record.
This recent breakthrough has brought us one step closer to sustaining plasma at high temperatures here on Earth, and consequently, one step closer to making nuclear fusion our future. According to CNN, by 2026, KSTAR aspires to sustain plasma at 100 million degrees Celsius for 300 seconds. That is more than 6 times the new record. When considering our growth over the past few years, it is easy to see that we have taken a huge step forward. Still, miles and miles lie ahead.
