What Europe is doing about fusion research and what the prospects are

The proposed Joint European Torus (JET) tokamak is described in a popular way, and in the context of the political question of whether it should be built at Ispra or at Culham. The cost has been estimated at $200 million. With a plasma current of 2.6 million amps and a magnetic field of 27.7 kilogauss, JET will be bigger than any yet built, but even more powerful tokamaks are planned for the USA, Japan and USSR. Designers expct the peak temperature to be just below, or just to attain, the 108 K required for D-T fusion. (N.D.H.)