JET

JET, the Joint European Torus, is a tokamak and is the largest and most powerful nuclear fusion reactor yet built.

Situated on an old RAF airfield near Culham, Oxfordshire, in the UK, construction was started in 1978 and the first experiments began in 1983.

In 1997 JET achieved 16MW of fusion power; the current world-record.

JET was later equipped with remote handling facilities to cope with the radioactivity produced by deuterium-tritium fuel, which is the fuel proposed for the first generation of fusion power plants. Pending construction of ITER, JET remains the only large fusion reactor able to use this fuel mix.

JET operated throughout 2003 culminating in experiments using small amounts of tritium. For most of 2004 it will be shutdown for a series of major upgrades increasing total available heating power to over 40MW, enabling further studeis relevant to the development of ITER to be undertaken. In the future it is possible that JET-EP (Extended Performance) will further increase the record for fusion power.

See also Timeline of nuclear fusion.

External Links

" class="external">http://www.fusion.org.uk/culham/jet.html

" class="external">http://www.jet.efda.org/index.html

" class="external">http://www.iaea.or.at/inis/ws/d1/r133.html

http://www-fusion-magnetique.cea.fr/gb/fusion/physique/principales_machines.htm summary of large tokamaks to date.