The New York Times reports:
“Construction of a reactor, called Sparc, which is being developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a spinoff company, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, is expected to begin next spring and take three or four years, the researchers and company officials said.”
Granted, that’s just construction. Next comes phases of testing and then, if the reactor reaches productive fusion, a long process of designing and building a power plant. But within fusion research, a timeline that claims commercial fusion power within a decade immediately jumps to the very front of the line—so much so that it naturally causes skepticism.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a34224299/nuclear-fusion-compact-reactor-sparc-timeline/A traditional tokamak like ITER uses a gigantic magnetic field to contain the extraordinarily hot plasma. Sparc, meanwhile, uses a “a newer electromagnet technology that uses so-called high temperature superconductors that can produce a much higher magnetic field,” the Times reports.
That means a smaller amount of plasma, a smaller entire reactor form factor, and perhaps fewer problems with containing and sustaining plasma, which have thwarted existing plasma fusion projects.
