Fusion energy consists of atoms being fused – unlike nuclear power, where atoms are split – and in the fusion process, large amounts of energy are released, which can be harvested as heat or create electricity. The process takes place by heating plasma in a reactor. However, the challenge with fusion power plants is that the process itself currently consumes more energy than it creates.
Professor Stefan Kragh Nielsen has now received a grant for the project "Enabling Continuously Operating Nuclear Fusion Power Plants", which collaborates with partners from the UK Atomic Energy Authority in Oxford in the UK and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. With the project, he aims to ensure the continuous operation of fusion power plants, which is necessary for uninterrupted power generation.
For fusion power plants to become practical, the energy generated by nuclear fusion must surpass the energy used to sustain plasma in experimental reactors. The current experimental reactors only allow short periods of operation, and Stefan Kragh Nielsen has several ideas for how to solve this. His project centres on finding ways to make plasma in a fusion reactor more stable and generate magnetic fields continuously.
“This research is crucial for advancing fusion technology as a sustainable and continuous energy source,” says Stefan Kragh Nielsen.
Read more at the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
