It will generate a magnetic field 280,000 times stronger than the magnetic field produced by the earth.

American engineers are preparing to ship the first part of the world's most powerful magnet to France, where it will help power the most advanced nuclear fusion reactor.

The magnet called the central solenoid will form the core of the world's largest fusion reactor, ITER, which means "road" in Latin. This international experiment involves 35 countries and aims to prove the feasibility of sustained nuclear fusion to create energy. In nuclear fusion, smaller atoms fuse to form larger atoms—a reaction that releases a lot of energy.

When fully assembled, the central solenoid is 59 feet (18 meters) high and 14 feet (4.3 meters) wide, and can generate a magnetic field of 13 tesla-approximately 280,000 times the earth's magnetic field-making it powerful enough to lift The entire aircraft carrier weighing approximately 100,000 tons (90,700 metric tons).

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"The central solenoid is the largest and most powerful pulse electromagnet ever," John Smith, director of engineering and projects at General Atomics, the company that makes magnets, told Live Science. 

The central solenoid consists of six individual modules, which will be stacked in the center of the ITER reactor. The entire magnet will be four stories high and weigh 1,000 tons (907 metric tons). 

Each individual module is essentially a large coil containing approximately 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) of steel sheathed niobium-tin superconducting cable. The module is then heat treated in a large furnace for several weeks to further improve its conductivity, then the cable is insulated and the coil is wound into its final shape.

According to Faraday's law of induction, the current passing through the wire generates a magnetic field perpendicular to the wire. When that wire is wound into a circle, the current will generate a circular magnetic field, and each coil will amplify the strength of the magnetic field. Therefore, the solenoid is produced by winding the wire multiple times. The simplest version of a solenoid is a classic classroom experiment in which students wind a wire around a nail and connect it to a battery. When the battery is turned on, the coil can pick up paper clips. 

However, the size and superconducting nature of the central solenoid means that more current can pass through it, causing it to generate a stronger magnetic field than anything ever before.

The central solenoid is the "beating heart" of the ITER reactor because it allows scientists to control the normally unstable nuclear fusion reactants.

ITER is designed to release small amounts of vaporized deuterium and tritium (the two hydrogen isotopes or versions of the same element with different atomic masses) into a large annular vacuum chamber called a tokamak. The tokamak overheats these isotopes, strips off the electrons of the atoms and converts the gas into plasma. This superheated plasma will reach 270 million degrees Fahrenheit (150 million degrees Celsius), which is 10 times hotter than the core of the sun. At this temperature, atoms fuse and release a lot of energy, which can be used to heat water and generate steam to turn turbines to generate electricity. 

As early as the 1950s, nuclear fusion had been achieved in multiple tokamak reactors, but it only lasted a few seconds at a time. In order for nuclear fusion to become a viable option for power generation, this reaction must maintain a constant rate and produce less energy than it produces.

One of the biggest obstacles to continuous fusion is the control and manipulation of the hot plasma in the reactor. 

This is where the central solenoid comes into play. Smith said that theoretically, the strong magnetic field it generates will fix the plasma inside the tokamak and maintain the reaction.

The first central solenoid module took more than five years to build and was finally ready to be shipped to the ITER base in France.

Smith said engineers are building and transporting each module individually because the complete magnet is too large to be transported safely. He added that these modules are also built separately, just in case they need to be replaced.

The journey of the module will start from the highway. It will be moved from the San Diego base of General Atomics to a port in Houston via a huge 24-axle tractor. From there, the giant magnets will be shipped to Marseilles, France in early July, arrive there in late August, and then transported by road to the ITER facility again.

The remaining five modules and an additional spare module will follow the same route when completed in the next few years, Smith said.

Each of the 35 participating countries, including the entire European Union and the United Kingdom, Switzerland, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United States, has designed and produced more than 1 million individual reactor components. 

According to engineers, the central solenoid is the largest of several contributions in the United States, accounting for about 9% of the total cost of ITER. Smith said General Atomics is developing additional technologies and components to help with plasma treatment, and other US companies and universities are providing cooling and exhaust systems, diagnostics, instruments and controls.

Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on such large-scale projects, the construction of ITER is still expected to be completed in 2025 and is currently about 75% complete. Smith said that the full-scale fusion reaction will not happen until 2035 at the earliest.

Continued nuclear fusion can open the door to unlimited renewable energy, which will reduce carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels that cause climate change. 

"Fusion is one of the few potential options for large-scale carbon-free energy production," Smith said. "It provides a safe, clean, always-on resource that does not generate emissions or long-lived waste."

In order to prevent—and even slow—the warming of the planet, wind, solar, tidal, and other renewable energy systems must be massively scaled up long before ITER fuses its first atoms. But due to the variability of its energy output (for example, wind turbines only work when there is wind), we will still have to rely on fossil fuels to ensure a reliable power supply from the grid, Smith said.

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Therefore, it is very important to achieve sustained nuclear fusion as soon as possible and replicate the technology worldwide.

"ITER is an important step in this direction. It will showcase the physics and technology leading to fusion power plants," Smith said.

Originally published on Live Science.

Harry is a contributing writer for Live Science in the UK. He studied marine biology at the University of Exeter (Penlin campus), founded his own blog site "Marine Madness" after graduation, and continued to run it with other marine enthusiasts. He is also interested in evolution, climate change, robotics, space exploration, environmental protection and anything fossilized. When he is not working, he can be seen watching sci-fi movies, playing old Pokemon games or running (maybe slower than he wants). 

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