Small, modular nuke plant proposed—this time for fusion

Despite frequent hopes to the contrary, Mr. Fusion traytill lives firmly in the realm of science fiction. The two primary methods of obtaining fusion—inertial confinement and tokamaks—date from the 1950s. While they've been refined and improved, we're still a long way off from generating power with it.

But the rest of the research world hasn't stood still, and developments in other areas of research have been gradually reshaping the fusion landscape. Now, researchers from MIT are claiming that high-temperature superconductors can produce magnetic fields that would allow a compact, modular fusion reactor. Because of its modular designs, researchers could easily swap out parts to try new configurations. Oh yeah—they also calculate it should work as a power plant as well.

The team is calling the new tokamak design ARC, for affordable, robust, compact. In fusion research, most of those terms are relative. Compact still allows a fusion chamber that's about four meters tall, making for a building-sized facility. "Affordable" in fusion allows for a cost estimate that runs in the neighborhood of $5.6 billion. The vast majority of that cost comes from the superconducting wiring, which is estimated to run at $4.6 billion. Mind you, that much money would buy you 5730 kilometers of superconducting wiring. A few of these reactors would probably float the superconductor manufacturing industry out of its infancy.