Energy · 2025

Long-pulse fusion plasmas

Superconducting tokamaks hold hot plasmas for over 1,000 seconds.

In January 2025 China's EAST sustained a high-confinement plasma for 1,066 seconds, and in February France's WEST held a plasma for 1,337 seconds. Steady operation, not just brief peaks, is what a power plant will need.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

High-temperature superconducting magnet 2021
Tokamak 1958

What it led to 1

Commercial fusion electricity ~2045

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Record fusion triple product Latest: 1.73×10²² keV·s/m³ (2017) Source: Wurzel & Hsu 2022, Physics of Plasmas 29, 062103; Wurzel & Hsu 2025 update, Physics of Plasmas 32, 112106

Nuclear electricity generation Latest: 2.81k TWh (2025) Source: Our World in Data