The artificial sun of China has broken records for clean energy scientists are promoting nuclear fusion to be the “ultimate energy source’ for the future of humankind.
The nuclear fusion reactor in China has been in the news this month due to creating an artificial sun that was five times hotter than the real thing.
The state media Xinhua said that the device set records in the world when it sustained the nuclear reaction at 70 million degrees Celsius (158 million degrees Fahrenheit) for more than 17 minutes.
The artificial sun is a research project known as”the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) and is located by a research center located in China’s Heifei city, located in Anhui Province.
We know this so far:
It’s not a sun.’
As its name might suggest, it is not fake, as some Twitter videos could make you believe that EAST is not an unmoving spaceship of light released in the air.
It’s a donut-shaped chamber in which an intense magnetic field holds plasma that has been heated.
The aim of this “sun is not to provide either heat or light but rather an immense volume of pure energy researchers are hoping to harvest to power cities.
The name “artificial sun,” due to creating energy known as nuclear fusion, is a replica of the sun’s physical properties.
The process uses atomic nuclei to convert large amounts of electricity by combining hydrogen atoms into helium.
China switches on ‘artificial sun nuclear reactor.
It’s breaking records.
Before EAST, the French Tore Supra Tokamak held the record in the world for the most extended duration of plasma time of any reactor using Tokamak at 6.5 minutes in 2003.
South Korea’s Korean Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) reactor set a new world record in 2016 when it maintained fifty million-degrees degrees Celsius (90 million Fahrenheit) for 70 seconds.
EAST broke the record set by KSTAR in 2021, sustaining the 119 million degrees mark Celsius (216 million Fahrenheit) for 102 seconds.
EAST also set a record in May of last year when it ran for 101 secs at an incredible 120 million ° Celsius (216 million degrees Fahrenheit).).
Contrastingly, the sun’s center is about 15 million ° Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit).
It’s growing the number of clean energy sources.
Nuclear fusion does not produce greenhouse gases and does not leave radioactive waste.
Scientists from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science have praised the accomplishments of EAST in expanding the nation’s renewable energy sources.
“As opposed to fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas, which are in danger of being exhausted and pose a threat to the environment, raw materials required for the ‘artificial sun’ are almost unlimited on Earth,” research scientist Gong Xianzu in a press announcement.
“Therefore, fusion energy is considered the ideal ‘ultimate energy’ for the future of humanity.”
It’s expensive, but it’s worth it.
EAST will cause China an estimated $1 trillion before it concludes in June.
It’s part of a collaborative project in France known as ITER, which stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) that is expected to be the most significant nuclear reactor.
Alongside China Alongside China, 35 countries are also part of this project which includes the entire European Union, the United Kingdom, India, and the United States.
ITER is the world’s most powerful magnet, capable of generating an electric field that is twice as strong as Earth’s field, as per Live Science.
The world’s nuclear fusion reactor is set to start operating in 2025.
But, China isn’t stopping at EAST. The country plans to finish an entirely new device called the Tokamak in the 2030s.
