French Tokamak Sets New Plasma Duration Record
2025-02-18
WEST, a tokamak at CEA Cadarache in southern France, has set a new world record by maintaining a plasma for 1337 seconds (over 22 minutes). This surpasses the previous record held by China's EAST tokamak by 25%. The WEST team aims to extend plasma duration to several hours and increase temperatures, providing crucial experience for the ITER project. This breakthrough represents significant progress in magnetic confinement fusion, but commercial applications still face technological and economic hurdles.
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Tokamak