New milestone for nuclear fusion: reactor breaks record for plasma duration

[Redaktion]

French researchers could maintain stable plasma for 22 minutes, a 25% improvement over the previous record. Scientists are working to achieve several hours of plasma duration to make viable fusion nuclear power generation.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/New-milestone-for-nuclear-fusion-reactor-breaks-record-for-plasma-duration.971531.0.html

[JohnT]

China EAST 1006 seconds' record was made to maintain the plasma temperature at 100 million Celsius degrees, twice as high as this record is made.

[ArsLoginName]

Neither write up said anything (maybe the press releases or technical papers do?) but does temperature matter once you achieve ignition and sustained fusion? We would have some idea if the write-ups told us how much energy it took to create those plasmas as well as how much energy the plasmas produced. I bring up extra temperature as maybe extra energy losses akin to any photon greater then the band gap in a photovoltaic produces extra waste energy relative to the power it generates.

[Greg wasik]

These records are just for maintaining the plasma, not producing fusion, so there is still a ways to go.