If the 16-meter-wide device, called a stellarator, can match or outperform similar-size tokamaks, it could cause fusion scientists to rethink the future of their field.
Is the search for fusion energy, long dominated by doughnut-shaped devices called tokamaks, about to undergo a shape shift? Just as ITER, the world’s largest tokamak—and at tens of billions of dollars the most expensive—nears completion in the hills of southern France, a much smaller testbed with a twistier geometry will start throttling up to full power in Germany.
To make their plasma-confining magnetic fields, tokamaks and stellarators employ electromagnetic coils looping around the vessel and through the central hole. But such a field is stronger nearer the hole than the outer edge, causing plasma to drift to the reactor’s wall. Despite the wait, researchers haven’t been disappointed. “The machine worked immediately,” says W7-X director Thomas Klinger. “It’s a very easy-going machine. [It] just did what we told it to do.” This contrasts with tokamaks, which are prone to “instabilities”—the plasma bulging or wobbling in unpredictable ways—or more violent “disruptions,” often linked to interrupted plasma flow.
W7-X’s achievements have prompted venture capitalists to back several startups developing commercial power-producing stellarators. First priority for the startups: Find a simpler way to make the magnets.
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