Seoul: South Korea on Thursday started preparations to begin building a nuclear fusion reactor after 2035 and produce electric power around 2050 in a bid to keep up with the intensifying international competition for the future clean and limitless energy, its Science Ministry said.
A fusion reactor, which is also called a fusion power plant, is a device that produces electric power from energy released from nuclear fusion, in which two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus.
Many countries have been making constant efforts for decades to carry out research into fusion reaction, a process believed to provide a safe, clean and inexhaustible source of energy, and solve mankind’s energy needs.
Under the government-led long-term outline, approved by the national fusion commission Thursday, the concept of South Korea’s first fusion reactor will have a capacity of 500 megawatt electrical, or 500 MWe, with a major radius of 7 metres, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT, Yonhap reported.
The government will lead research and development to secure basic technologies and innovation for the megaproject before 2035, when the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is expected to complete its experiment to create energy through a fusion process.
ITER is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering project aimed at proving the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a large-scale source of energy. South Korea officially joined the next-generation nuclear fusion reactor consortium in late 2006, which also comprised the European Union, the United States, Russia, China, Japan, and India.
“If ITER succeeds in substantiating the feasibility of fusion power generation around 2035-38, a fusion power plant will likely be available around 2050,” Yoo Suk-jae, President of the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy (KFE), said in a press conference on Wednesday.
He cited the 14-year gap between the discovery of nuclear chain reaction in 1942 and the operation of natural fission chain reactors.
“After the success in 2035, we will have to be ready to change our mode to designing and building at once,” he said. “The outline is about our action plan to get fully aware of all necessary technologies and processes.”
While carrying out basic scientific and engineering research, the government will form a task force to draw the broad outlines of function and form of a new fusion reactor later this year, and come up with a final design by 2035. If the reactor is constructed as planned, it will begin operations around 2050, the ministry added.
The move came as research and investment into the safe, limitless zero-carbon energy have been heating up since US scientists have achieved a net energy gain from a fusion reaction in late December.
South Korea has been leading the global development in the sector, running the tokamak-typed nuclear fusion reactor, called the Korean Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR), built in 2007 with a major radius of 1.8 m, a minor radius of 0.5 m.
KSTAR is aimed at featuring fully superconducting magnets to study technologies for operating ITER-led fusion reactors, and has achieved world records by confining and maintaining hydrogen plasma at a higher temperature and for a longer time than any other reactors in the world.
KSTAR contained a plasma at 50 million C for 70 seconds in 2016 for the first time in the world and reached 100 million C for 30 seconds in 2021.
The KFE said it is now working on upgrading KSTAR to confine plasma for more than 50 seconds at 100 million C. Its experiment is aimed at reaching 300 seconds by 2026 to prove its ability to operate a fusion reactor around-the-clock.
“We can now see we are much closer to commercial fusion power,” the KFE chief said. “Fusion power is expected to play a role in solving our energy-related problems like climate change, national security and technology dominance.”
“The competition to commercialise a fusion reactor around 2050 is intensifying,” Vice Minister Oh Tae-seog said. “We will do our best to secure core technologies for a fusion reactor on our own and seek international cooperation as well.”
(IANS)
