Dr Heather Lewtas

JET is the world’s largest and most advanced tokamak. Plasmas in JET are hotter than anywhere in the Solar System.

Operated by Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, the Joint European Torus (JET) is the focal point of the European fusion research programme.

JET was designed to study fusion in conditions approaching those needed for a power plant. It is the only experiment that can operate with the deuterium-tritium fuel mix that will be used for commercial fusion power.  Fusion energy holds out the potential of virtually unlimited supplies of low-carbon, low-radiation energy.

Since it began operating in 1983, JET has made major advances in the science and engineering of fusion. Its success has led to the construction of the first commercial-scale fusion machine, ITER, and has increased confidence in the tokamak as a design for future fusion power plants.

Last February JET made a major breakthrough in their quest to develop practical nuclear fusion smashing its own world record for the amount of energy it can extract by squeezing together two forms of hydrogen, with a production of 11 megawatts of power over five seconds.