The Boston Globe has an update on Commonwealth Fusion Systems, an MIT spinoff that is working on a fusion reactor. It’s going to build a manufacturing facility in Devens, Mass. and says it has “developed highly sophisticated electromagnets that can confine the plasma used in the process efficiently.” If they ever build a plant, it would not be in Devens. The story is here.
Fusion – making energy by smashing atoms together instead of fission’s breaking them apart – is the (cliche alert!) holy grail of energy production. It has been 10 years away for my entire life. Using magnets to contain the plasma has long been the one-sentence description of research projects.
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