European nuclear fusion facility generates record burst of energy

The Joint European Torus (JET) facility in Oxfordshire has broken new nuclear fusion energy records in a major breakthrough on the elusive power source.

A group of scientists and engineers from the EUROfusion consortium achieved a record-breaking 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy, marking a new milestone in the quest for a large-scale safe, sustainable, efficient and low-carbon energy supply.

The energy, created by smashing together two forms of hydrogen, was more than double the previous record achieved in 1996 at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and lasted for a five-second period.

Using fusion energy, the process that gives the sun its power, JET reached temperatures ten times…