In the new year, China continues to be a news generator for the world. This time we are talking about a record in the field of nuclear fusion. Experimental advanced superconducting tokamak EAST (toroidal installation for magnetic plasma confinement) known as “artificial sun” worked for 1056 seconds. In 17 minutes it heated the plasma to 70 million degrees, which is not only a record on Earth, but also higher than the temperature of the core of the Sun almost five times. The goal of the project is to generate limitless clean energy, mimicking the natural reactions that take place inside stars. The project has already cost the Chinese authorities an incredible trillion dollars. The main difference with existing nuclear reactors is that this process requires no fossil fuels, and no spent fuel, an extremely active substance that requires expensive burial with continuous supervision over many years.
The main thing is that the experiment does not result in something worse than the coronavirus, whose origin is also attributed to Chinese laboratories. The world has already seen several nuclear reactor disasters, and each of them was very costly to mankind. At the same time, in many areas the refusal to build up the energy generated by reactors is not even considered, since they are the cheapest source, with virtually no restrictions on location. For example, one of Russia’s new projects, by the way, a participant in the development of the “artificial sun,” is the Akademik Lomonosov floating nuclear power plant (FNPP) operating in the port of Pevek in Chukotka.
China’s “artificial sun” is one of numerous private and government-funded experiments to create power plants powered by magnetically limited plasma from fusible isotopes. The goal is to solve the many physical problems (stable plasma at sufficient temperature and density) that must be solved before engineering solutions can be demonstrated. These engineering solutions must lead to an available energy source for the research to be useful. Given the lack of transparency and the occasional exaggeration of research results in China, it is difficult to evaluate this particular experiment. The Chinese do publish a lot, and most articles are of high quality. Perhaps someday someone will get to a feasible and functional fusion plan, and this could be one useful experiment along the way that provides important information.
References
Carleton, A. (2022). People think China launched an ‘Artificial Sun’ into the sky. Vice. Web.
Nguyen, T. T., Nam, S. N., Kim, J., & Oh, J. (2020). Photocatalytic degradation of dissolved organic matter under ZnO-catalyzed artificial sunlight irradiation system. Scientific reports, 10(1), 1-12.