Princeton Reactor Sets Record for Fusion-Generated Electricity

A test reactor at Princeton University has reached a record of 9 million watts of electricity generation by nuclear fusion, officials announced Tuesday.

The record by the doughnut-shaped Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor was nearly 50% higher than the previous record of 6.2 million watts attained by the same reactor in December.

“We’re very pleased. The staff is ecstatic,” said Ron Davidson, director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, which operates the reactor under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy.

But fusion requires high temperatures and takes large amounts of external power to fuse the atoms.

The latest output record, reached Friday, produced only 40% as much power as was needed to create the fusion.

Fusion has long been envisioned as a method of producing a virtually limitless form of environmentally safe energy. Unlike nuclear fission, which requires nuclear fuel and leaves hazardous wastes, fusion is produced from water and produces no pollution.

The Princeton, N.J., reactor is scheduled to be decommissioned in September. The lab has proposed that a new reactor, known as TPX for Tokamak Physics Experiment, be developed starting next year. The $694-million reactor could be operational by 2000.

Similar experiments are being done at the European Torus reactor in Oxfordshire, England.