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A joint team of researchers with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and private company Commonwealth Fusion Systems is predicting that they will have a viable nuclear fusion reactor generating electricity and attached to the electrical grid within the next fifteen years.

A recent breakthrough in superconductor technology that involves the use of steel tape coated with a compound called yttrium-barium-copper oxide (YBCO) allows reactor designers to shrink the size of the magnets that contain the super-hot plasma fuel within the reactor, making them more powerful, and thus lowering the amount of energy required to run the reactor.
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A new experimental fusion reactor built by the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics in Germany received a brief test run on February 3, bringing the promise of clean and sustainable fusion-generated power one step closer to reality.

This new reactor, called the Wendelstein 7-X, is a doughnut-shaped, 425-ton device, made up of a series of winding magnetic segments. The reactor was test-fired using helium last December, since helium is easier to convert to plasma than hydrogen (the intended fuel for a fusion reaction), and helium plasma can clean the interior of the plasma chamber of any dust left over from the unit’s construction.
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