Progress Toward a Tokamak Fusion Reactor

Nearly 90% of the world's energy needs are today supplied by fossil fuels. Longterm reliance on fossilfuel energy sources, however, is acknowledged to be a dangerous strategydespite the large reserves of coal available in the US and elsewhere. Use of fossil fuels exacerbates pollution and acid rain and heightens the risk of global warming by adding [formula] to the atmosphere. Society will be served best if energy production in the next century uses environmentally attractive methods that do not involve the combustion of fossil fuels. (See the article by John H. Gibbons and Peter D. Blair in PHYSICS TODAY, July 1991, page 22.) The long time required to develop and implement new largescale energy technologieson the order of decadesunderscores the urgency of the need to accelerate development of alternative energy sources. Tremendous advances have been made toward demonstrating the physics and technology required to develop magnetically confined deuteriumtritium tokamak plasmas as an environmentally attractive energy source.