JET

Research facility at Culham, near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, that conducts experiments on nuclear fusion. Opened in 1984, it is the focus of the European effort to produce a safe and environmentally sound fusion-power reactor. On 9 November 1991, the JET tokamak, operating with a mixture of deuterium and tritium, produced a 1.7 megawatt pulse of power in an experiment that lasted two seconds. In 1997, isotopes of deuterium and tritium were fused to produce a record 21 megajoule of nuclear fusion power. JET has tested the first large-scale plant of the type needed to process and supply tritium in a future fusion power station.

On 1 January 2000, the European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA) took over the operation of the JET machine. Future work at JET will pave the way for a new European fusion reactor to be built at Cadarache in southern France and expected to begin operation in 2016.