According to researchers from the EUROfusion consortium, which encompasses 4,800 experts from across Europe, the experiment at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) site in Oxford more than doubled previous energy generation records that were achieved in 1997.
Fifty-nine megajoules of sustained fusion energy were generated for five seconds in the Joint European Torus (JET) tokamak machine.
The scientific data from the experiment is seen as a major boost for ITER, the larger and more advanced version of JET.
The ITER tokamak proof-of-concept fusion plant has been under construction in France since 2013. Its main reactor is planned to be completed in late 2025 and is designed to create and sustain a plasma of 500MW (thermal power) for 20 minutes, with just 50MW of thermal power injected into the reactor.
As pressures mount to address the effects of climate change through decarbonising energy production, hopes have long rested on the idea that fusion plants...