CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS — Researchers from MIT say nuclear fusion is only 15 years away from becoming a reality. <br /> <br />A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology working with newly formed company Commonwealth Fusion Systems says it will build a working fusion power plant in 15 years, thanks to a new superconducting material that recently became commercially available. <br /><br />The MIT Energy Initiative announced the project in a statement published March 9 on its website. <br /><br />The collaboration between MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems plans to use the new superconducting steel tape coated with a yttrium-barium-copper oxide to make smaller, more powerful magnets that can be used in fusion reactors. <br />The new magnets will double the magnetic field of a fusion reactor, which means more power can be produced with a smaller device. <br />The smaller size will reduce costs and complexity, making future fusion power plants easier to build. <br /><br />The researchers say they will be able to create the first fusion reactor that produces more energy than is required to get the fusion reaction going, the university said in a statement published on MIT News.<br />The planned fusion experiment, called SPARC, is set to be 1/65th the volume of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project currently being built in France, according to Guardian. <br /><br />"This is an important historical moment: Advances in superconducting magnets have put fusion energy potentially within reach, offering the prospect of a safe, carbon-free energy future," MIT President L. Rafael Reif said in the statement to MIT News.
