19 October 2011

The quest to produce power from fusion is back on track after the test-bed reactor JET restarted successfully. But some serious challenges, which require heavy computing, still lie on the scientists' path between here and realising their dream.

Scientists are installing extremely sensitive infra-red cameras to find tiny hot-spots in the walls of the container, which might show why and where energy is lost. And they must also tackle one of the most important unsolved problems of classical physics: turbulance.