The World's Largest Fusion Reactor Now Has the World's Most Powerful Magnet
A powerful core magnet is almost ready for installation at ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.
The tokamak, which will produce thermonuclear fusion power, relies on the magnet to propel and shape its plasma stream.
Each of the magnet's six modules weigh 110 tons, making transport tricky.
The world's most powerful magnet, the "Central Solenoid," is finally here. At 59 feet tall, 14 feet wide, and 1,000 tons, the decade-in-the-making magnet is truly massive. Appropriately, it will soon find a home at the world's largest fusion reactor.
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General Atomics completed construction of the magnet's first module earlier this year. Last week, the company began the process of shipping it off to southern France, where engineers will install it at the core of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), soon to be the world's largest fusion reactor if all goes to plan.
ITER's 35 partner nations, including the U.S., European Union, China, the U.K., and India, have been supplying various parts to the colossal fusion reactor project over the past 15 months. To split up the financial burden, each partner nation is responsible for a piece of technology and the underlying research and development. The Central Solenoid is the U.S.'s largest contribution to-date.
The gigantic ITER reactor is a means of proving that fusion is a feasible energy solution for a carbon-free future. So far, no existing fusion reactor has even come close to producing more energy than it uses. This is a huge sticking point, because the reactors use an enormous amount of electricity. And if that energy is sourced from coal power plants, for example, it renders the fusion reactor a giant step backward in carbon emissions.
While this giant reactor will not generate electricity, it "will be a critical testbed for the integrated technologies, materials, and physics regimes necessary for the commercial production of fusion-based electricity," ITER explains in a statement. "The lessons learned at ITER will be used to design the first generation of commercial fusion power plants."
The superconducting Central Solenoid electromagnet is key to this mission because it's the "beating heart" of the ITER tokamak—a magnetic confinement device that produces controlled thermonuclear fusion power. Inside the fully assembled tokamak, the Central Solenoid will induce and contain the sun-hot plasma that actually generates the power.
For context, the Central Solenoid is so powerful that its magnetic force "is strong enough to lift an aircraft carrier 2 meters (6 feet) into the air," ITER says in the statement. "At its core, it will reach a magnetic field strength of 13 Tesla, about 280,000 times stronger than the earth's magnetic field. The support structures for the Central Solenoid will have to withstand forces equal to twice the thrust of a space shuttle lift-off."
To be clear, General Atomics has only begun shipping the first of six total modules that will comprise the Central Solenoid. Each one weighs 110 tons (compare that with a U.S. interstate highway maximum weight of "just" 40 tons) and ITER will stack and link them together at the center of the reactor.
The transport process is a bit tricky, and will involve specialized heavy transport vehicles along multiple legs of the journey. After loading each module, General Atomics will ship the pieces to Houston, where a transport ship will pick them up. The company will send Module 1 to sea in late July, and it will arrive in France by late August. ITER estimates that ground transit to the reactor site will take place in early September.
Luckily, the ITER team used to finagling huge pieces of equipment. Engineers have already constructed a special road to the facility in the south of France, allowing workers to bring immensely heavy items overland—not dissimilar to the special roads that move space vehicles from preparation spaces to the launchpad.
Once the Central Solenoid electromagnet is ready for its closeup, we'll be one (massive) step closer to the future of clean energy.
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