High-intensity fusion
Pablo Rodriguez Fernandez is hunched over a computer in the control room of MIT’s fusion reactor, gathering data that will inform the design of a new one — a device that could solve the world’s energy problems. He is surrounded by other scientists running simulations and analyzing data. Their work is spread across tables and desks covered in computers and a chaos of wires. The objective: to design a machine that will harness the same energy process that powers the sun and deliver it to the world, carbon free. They are here to make fusion energy a reality. This is the headquarters of a MIT’s Alcator C-Mod. A fixture on campus for 23 years, C-Mod uses high-intensity magnetic fields to confine hot plasma in a donut-shaped chamber — a reactor design known as a tokamak, a transliteration of a Russian word for “toroidal chamber.” During C-Mod’s final run, the reactor’s team...