AI Helps Overcome Key Barrier to Harnessing Nuclear Fusion Energy
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Scientists used AI to forecast and prevent instabilities in the plasma in nuclear fusion experiments, allowing fusion reactions to continue hundreds of milliseconds longer. This could help overcome a key barrier to harnessing fusion energy.
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Nuclear fusion works by forcing hydrogen atoms to fuse together under extraordinarily high heat, creating plasma that must be contained magnetically inside a tokamak machine.
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Researchers from Princeton and the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab found the AI system could predict tearing in the plasma up to 300 ms before it would happen without intervention.
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Experiments in nuclear fusion recently set new records, with a UK team sustaining a fusion reaction for 5 seconds and a California team achieving net positive fusion energy output.
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However, commercially viable fusion energy remains far off and is not expected to help address urgent climate change issues requiring emissions cuts this decade.