Roadmap to Fusion Power Vision of SST-Bharat in India

Once more India is making a tremendous leap forward into the future of clean energy with a proposal to construct the Steady-state Superconducting Tokamak-Bharat (SST-Bharat), which is an improved variant of fusion-fission hybrid reactor. The project will be a milestone in the nuclear research in India and the scope of this project is to produce 130 MW power (fission and fusion 100 MW and 30 MW respectively) in its first phase, and in the future the power will be 5 times more than the input energy. In a longer perspective, India intends to start a full scale demonstration reactor by 2060, with a proposed output-to-input ratio of 20 and 250 MW of power output.

Why Fusion Power Matters

The process that is used to acquire energy in the sun is called fusion, which is the fusion of light nuclei to produce massive energy. Fusion should also be considered a highly cleaner energy source, unlike the traditional fission reactors, in which there is little radioactive waste. The problem is, though, to recreate the extreme conditions, where it is more than 100 million degrees Celsius, to propagate fusion reactions on earth.

India's Tokamak Journey

India has been progressively moving in the field of magnetic confinement fusion, in which plasma is heated and contained within a tokamak reactor. The most recent experimental reactor it has, SST-1, was capable of sustaining plasma up to approximately 650 milliseconds, but was designed to last 16 minutes. The proposed SST-Bharat will be the next step which will be capable of a continuous plasma confinement and effective energy production.

Discoveries that have led to Advancements.

To address the technical issues, Indian scientists are considering the idea of digital twins a virtual representation of reactors by simulating the behaviour of plasmas in real time. Plasma instabilities are also being predicted and controlled in machine learning. Simultaneously, radiation resistant materials will be developed, which will be critical in the assurance of durability and safety of the reactor.

International Environment and issues.

Addressing the challenges posed by the fusion frontiers around the world, such as the STEP programme of the UK, the EAST tokamak of China, and the international ITER project are underway. The careful 2060 timeline used by India is both ambitious and realistic as fusion is not yet a technologically simple and cost-effective technology as renewables and fission.

Strategic Significance

Despite the roadblocks, the roadmap of India can have huge scientific and strategic advantages. The development of superconducting magnets, materials science, and plasma physics will help India improve its technological foundation as well as being part of the worldwide search towards clean and limitless energy.