China “Artificial Sun” has Just Broken a Record
China has reached a new milestone in mankind’s experiments to control the power of the stars.
China Academy
In May, the Sciences’ fusion machine reached 120 million degrees Celsius and remained at that temperature for 101 seconds.
The last time the EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak or HT-7U) withstood a plasma vortex for so long was in 2017, but the temperature only reached 50 million °C.
In 2018, the reactor kept the gas heated beyond the 100 million degree reference considered crucial for power generation, but could only sustain the plasma for about 10 seconds.
Now that it has kept the plasma at eight times the Sun’s core temperature of 15 million °C for such a long period, the new record has brought the world ever closer to this elusive but much sought after clean energy source.
Advancements in Fusion Energy: Nearing the Goal of Stable Nuclear Fusion
“The breakthrough is significant progress and the ultimate goal should be to keep the temperature at a stable level for a long time,” said physicist Li Miao University of Science and Technology of South China to the Global Times .
Fusion energy uses reactions that take place deep in the Sun, compressing hydrogen atoms into larger elements such as helium. Where the Sun relies on gravity to force atoms together, here on Earth we have to resort to less subtle means, raising temperatures in specially built generators to generate the atoms’ fusion forces.
The researchers estimate that the amount of deuterium – a stable form of hydrogen containing a proton and a neutron – in a liter of seawater could produce the equivalent of 300 liters of gasoline by nuclear fusion.
About 300 scientists and engineers are needed to maintain and operate the experimental facility that contains EAST. This large donut-shaped metal tube has a series of magnetic coils used to retain superheated streams of hydrogen plasma rotating around the core.
The challenge is to keep the plasma in place long enough, in enough hellish heat, for fusion to take place. It needs to be even hotter than the Sun because our star’s much stronger gravity helps compress the nuclei – something we can’t replicate here on Earth.
Advancing Towards Nuclear Fusion: A Step Closer to Clean Energy
With the theoretical potential to safely produce such large amounts of energy with no greenhouse gases and almost no radioactive waste, fusion energy is considered by some to be the holy grail of clean energy.
However, at the moment nuclear fusion is not yet a certainty, with a fully functioning ‘artificial sun’ still probably decades away from us . We haven’t yet reached the point where a fusion reactor can produce more energy than it consumes, but some experts think we’re getting close .
South Korea held the previous record of 100 million degrees °C for 20 seconds. Now China’s artificial sun has also managed to reach 160 million degrees °C for 20 seconds, but there is still a long way to go to make the plasma stable at the high temperatures required.
Nuclear fusion is a big step towards a future post-carbon society, but in the meantime, we must do everything we can to shift to proven clean energy technologies to ensure we can achieve that future.
Not we can afford to sit back and wait for a technological solution so attractive and fast but each step forward for nuclear fusion is certainly cause for enthusiasm.
