Name: How a high-tech blowpipe is heating up nuclear fusion
Uploaded: 2025-12-08T14:18:57.046Z
Duration: 4 min 35 s
Description: Germany’s W7-X stellarator in Greifswald is setting new fusion records, pushing science closer to clean, limitless energy for a sustainable future.

Germany’s W7-X stellarator in Greifswald is setting new fusion records, pushing science closer to clean, limitless energy for a sustainable future.

Greifswald

The Wendelstein 7X research facility in Greifswald, Germany, has set a new world record in nuclear fusion research by sustaining plasma at extreme temperatures for 43 seconds. This breakthrough was achieved by switching from traditional hydrogen gas injection to using tiny frozen hydrogen pellets, which are shot into the reactor using a high-tech blowpipe system.

The achievement puts W7X ahead of other major fusion research facilities and suggests the potential for even longer plasma durations in the future. While commercial fusion reactors are not expected before the second half of the century, ongoing upgrades and innovative approaches, including efforts by numerous startups, continue to advance the field.

How a high-tech blowpipe is heating up nuclear fusion

What does a donut have to do with the Sun? What does a blowpipe have to do with a furnace? And what happened on May 22, 2025? A really exciting day here at the Institute. It was top-notch. But first things first. Let's start with our ever-burning star and a question. Can the Sun's fusion process be replicated to produce energy here on Earth? Scientists have been trying and failing to achieve this for decades. We still don't have commercial fusion reactors, but we do have research facilities, like Wendelstein 7X in northeast Germany. It was purpose-built to develop a stellarator, a giant machine named after the Latin word for star. Since May, it's been a world record holder in fusion research, a title earned after months of experimentation. We noticed things were going well. It was like, that works and that works, so let's try this too. We were still improving right up to the end, so it got more and more exciting as we approached the finish line. The machine is called W7X. 450 people work here, including plasma physicists, engineers and technicians. At W7X, we mainly produce hydrogen plasmas. We feed in hydrogen gas, which is ionized by a heater and turned into a plasma. Here's how it works. Inside the machine is a vacuum chamber, shaped like a twisted donut. Normally, a tiny amount of hydrogen enters as a gas through a valve and is heated to extreme temperatures. Microwaves then strike the hydrogen atoms, ionizing them and transforming the gas into a plasma, heated to tens of millions of degrees Celsius. The plasma discharge then stayed at those temperatures for a record-breaking 43 seconds. This puts the lab well ahead of other major research facilities. What makes it particularly exciting is that we don't see any major obstacles to extending those 43 seconds to 100, 200 or even 500 seconds. So it's a real breakthrough. The successful attempt relied on a new approach. Instead of feeding hydrogen gas through a valve, researchers used tiny frozen hydrogen pellets. They're shot in through a kind of blowpipe, like the ones we made back in school. But these pellets are propelled by pressurized gas. They dissolve, melt and quickly vaporize, becoming plasma. So there's a constant supply of plasma, like shoveling coal into a furnace. The heat in this furnace is contained by magnetic fields generated by a complex array of magnets. They keep the plasma from touching the chamber walls because contact would cool it down instantly. Designing the W7X magnet configuration required supercomputers and years of planning. So, when can we expect the first fusion reactor to go online? A conservative estimate says sometime in the second half of the century, 2060 or 2070, something like that. But it's pointless to speculate, because we could also take a much bolder, unconventional approach. In fact, many startups are doing that. There are now about 50 fusion startups worldwide, taking a variety of approaches. They're aiming for success in the 2030s, which is practically tomorrow. But whether it will be the 2030s or the 2070s is something that no one can say for sure. For now, the Stellarator is undergoing maintenance, with a number of upgrades scheduled over the next few months. Then W7X will be back and chasing new records. Transcription by ESO. Translation by —

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