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A visit to MIT

· 2 min read
Patrick M. Slattery
Patrick M. Slattery
Maintainer of FutureOps.info

A visit to the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center in April 2019​

One of my previous interns works at MIT at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center on Albany Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He invited me to see their tokamak during a visit to Boston. It was powered down for decommissioning at the time as they were preparing to build a new super powerful Tokamak (SPARC) with their research partner Commonwealth Fusion Systems at a new site in Devens, Massachusetts.

You just know a Gehry when you see one ;-)
MIT Stata Center designed by Frank Gehry:
MIT Stata Center designed by Frank Gehry

The tokamak fusion reactor at MIT PSFC, it's the big light blue object on the left: boston-fusion-reactor-01

boston-fusion-reactor-02

We spent about an hour in the reactor room looking at all kinds of stuff, I got to stick my head inside the maintenance port in the reactor and saw the insides of the reactor.
We also saw some of the ReBCO tape that the new SPARC reactor will use for the superconducting magnets that should allow it to be the first Tokamak to exceed breakeven power (Generates more power than is input to start the reaction).
Overall a very cool visit, it's amazing to see the technology that almost certainly will revolutionize the world in the coming years and I was very proud of my former intern having a role in helping to make that happen.