Man’s quest for alternate clean energy to fossil fuels is pushing the boundaries of science and technology to extreme limits. Scientists and engineers are busy proving the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy mimicking the Sun where hydrogen gas atoms fuse to form Helium producing unending source of energy that powers it. In the Sun’s core, fusion of atomic nuclei takes place due to enormous gravitational pressure that enables fusion at temperatures of about 15 million degrees Centigrade .But there are no materials on Earth that can survive this kind of pressures and heat. To overcome this limitation ,the concept of a tokamak was developed in Soviet Union in 1958 that later became the basis of larger fusion experimental machines. A tokamak is a ring-shaped fusion reactor where a doughnut-shaped strong magnetic field confine and control a super-heated gas or plasma. Plasma is an electrically charged gas due to the presence of ions, electrons and neutral atoms. In tokamak, the requirement of very high pressure is compensated by temperatures that are many times higher than the core of Sun. Inside a European tokamak developed in 1983, the plasma with extreme temperature of 150 million degrees Centigrade, ten times hotter than the Sun was confined in a magnetic field that allows fusion of atomic nuclei.
Hence, nuclear fusion reactors are nicknamed “artificial suns” as they generate energy in a similar way to the sun. In January 2025 the Chinese Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) created a world record when it maintained a steady, highly confined loop of a superheated plasma for 1,066 seconds and broke its own record of 403 seconds in 2023. This is a landmark success because duration of 1,000 seconds is considered a key step in fusion research. The data from this experiment would greatly help the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) program that started in 1985 in southern France. This would be the world’s largest experimental tokamak in which China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States are participating. The ITER that contains the world’s most powerful magnet is expected to fire up in 2039 and become a hub for sustained research in the development of fusion technology and could pave the way for fusion power plants. India is a full partner in this international collaboration and has committed Rs.17,000 crores a few years back.
Currently, nuclear reactors produce energy through fission of Uranium, Plutonium or a mix of both. Though a clean energy, it generates tons of radio-active waste that can be avoided in nuclear fusion. While other parallel efforts goes on with renewable energy, fusion technology holds great promise for a zero-carbon future. This energy releases no greenhouse gases and will be incredibly efficient with 1kg of fusion fuel producing energy that is the equivalent of 10 million tonnes of coal. Also, a fusion reaction is about four million times more energetic than a chemical reaction such as the burning of coal, oil or gas.
