Thermo-nuclear fusion advance

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33655, 3 October 1974, Page 13

Thermo-nuclear fusion advance

(New Zealand Press Association—Copyright) AUSTIN (Texas), October 2. University of Texas research workers have announced that they have achieved temperatures above 200 million degrees Fahrenheit (93 million degrees Celsius).

The highest temperature recorded in a contained gas, the figure beat the previous record by about five times. Dr William Drummond, director of the university's fusion research centre, said that the temperature was twice the minimum theoretically heeded for nuclear fusion, but had been maintained for only about one--50-millionth of a second, instead of the full second required. “What we have achieved is just one milestone on a long road,” he said. “At the moment, we are looking to a point some time in the

19905, when we should have a fusion power plant which will demonstrate both the engineering and the commercial viability of this new source of energy.” Dr Drummond said that commercial thermo-nuclear fusion would solve the world’s energy needs. It used an isotope of hydrogen called deuterium, which could be extracted easily from sea water, and Lake Austin contained enough deuterium to equal the energy of the oil reserves of the entire Middle East. The temperature was achieved in a gas confined in a magnetic field in a machine called a tokamak, a doughnut-shaped device developed by Soviet Union scientists. “With thermo - nuclear fusion, there would be no

radioactive wastes, and no possibility of a nuclear accident,” Dr Drummond said. “It’s so hard to make it

work in the first place that to think of it blowing up is inconceivable.”