US energy company installs first fusion magnet, nears clean power breakthrough (Sujita Sinha, 1/07/26, Interesting Engineering)
The newly installed D-shaped magnet is the first of 18 that will form a doughnut-like structure to confine and compress plasma. Each magnet weighs about 24 tons and can generate a 20-tesla magnetic field, roughly 13 times stronger than a standard MRI machine.“It’s the type of magnet that you could use to, like, lift an aircraft carrier,” said Bob Mumgaard, CFS’ co-founder and CEO.
The magnets will sit upright on a 24-foot-wide, 75-ton stainless steel circle called a cryostat, which was installed last March. To operate safely, the magnets will be cooled to -423°F (-253°C) to conduct over 30,000 amps of current. Inside the doughnut, plasma will burn at more than 180 million degrees Fahrenheit (100 million°C).
Mumgaard explained, “It’ll go bang, bang, bang throughout the first half of this year as we put together this revolutionary technology.”
Today is always ten years from now.