After 7 years of development, a machine called MAST Upgrade in Culham, Oxfordshire, England, successfully energized the experimental nuclear fusion reactor and produced the "first plasma". It was confirmed that all the components could work together to heat hydrogen to Plasma state.

In nuclear fusion, the nuclei of two or more light elements fuse into a heavier nucleus and release energy. The energy of the sun comes from the nuclear fusion in the center. If we can reproduce and maintain the same fusion reaction on the earth on a sufficient scale, we can harvest almost unlimited clean energy.

Of course, we have not gotten there yet, but the success of MAST Upgrade and the first trial run are important milestones in the journey. The original MAST (famous tokamak device) operated from 1999 to 2013.

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"We hope that the United Kingdom will become top in the world in nuclear fusion energy technology and use its amazing potential as a clean energy source." British Minister of Science, Amanda Soloway, said in a statement, "The MAST Upgrade device is powered by this country's nuclear fusion and we have taken another step towards our goal of building Britain’s first nuclear fusion power plant by 2040."

Nuclear fusion reactors need some kind of device to control the plasma. Tokamaks-circular devices that use a magnetic field to contain the plasma produced by fusion reactions are one of the highly anticipated designs.

For a long time, tokamak has adopted a doughnut-shaped configuration, but new equipment like MAST Upgrade is a more advanced spherical design, which is expected to bring many benefits in terms of efficiency and performance.

MAST Upgrade is operated by the Culham Fusion Energy Center (CCFE) under the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). Now that it is in operation, the fusion experiment will have to overcome a bunch of bottlenecks in the next few years.

Heat dissipation is the primary problem to resolve. Fusion reactors can generate incredible heat, which can damage reactor components. In order to solve this problem, MAST Upgrade will test a new type of exhaust system called "Super-X Splitter" designed to reduce the heat and power load generated by particles leaving the plasma.

If the splitter is successful, it can increase the heat dissipation efficiency by 10 times compared to before, which may be enough to make the fusion reactor a positive-return power supply technology.

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Everything about nuclear fusion reactors is big and complicated. The MAST Upgrade, although a huge project that took 7 years, is only a small part of the whole puzzle.

On top of it, a larger project will start its trial operation, namely the Spherical Tokamak Energy Production (STEP), which will be UK's first prototype nuclear fusion power station and it is expected to be completed in 2040.

At the same time, what the researchers learned from MAST Upgrade will also provide reference information for another large-scale trial operation: the world's largest nuclear fusion experiment, called the ‘International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor’ (ITER).

ITER is currently being assembled in southern France, with thousands of scientists from more than 30 countries that are participating. It has been in implementation for many years, 5 years later than planned, but when the project is completed (estimated cost is about 65 billion US dollars), ITER will be the best opportunity to show us the value of nuclear fusion.

We may be several years away from this day, but the MAST Upgrade is a big step we have taken towards this goal.

"ITER is a next-generation nuclear fusion device," CCFE physicist Andrew Thornton explained. "MAST Upgrade provides us with experimental data to guide how to operate the device in the future."