A New Fusion Prototype Floats Into Action OpenStar’s levitating dipole device ditches the traditional doughnut-shaped design
Mark Harris12 Nov 2024
Mark Harris is a contributing editor for IEEE Spectrum and an investigative science and technology reporter.

Many fusion energy startups talk about trying to replicate the awesome power of the sun. But only one is also trying to replicate the sun’s structure, by having the reactor’s most important component—a powerful magnet—float in a vacuum, surrounded by a ball of thermonuclear glowing gas.

Two weeks ago, OpenStar Technologies achieved “first plasma”—a cloud of ionized helium contained by a superconducting magnet suspended at the center of a prototype device called Junior, in New Zealand.

OpenStar is still years away from producing fusion, let alone net power gain, but its founder and CEO Ratu Mataira told IEEE Spectrum that its design, which will eventually include that magnet hovering meters above the ground, might be humanity’s best shot at achieving commercial-scale fusion energy.

“It’s the only fusion configuration that nature doesn’t want to destroy immediately at all times,” he said.

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