A few days ago, our @svemirac sent a wonderful text about fusion. The natural one, inside the stars like our Sun. Can it be done on Earth?

I went with a joking comment, saying: “Great, @svemirac, all the instructions are there, now someone just have to assemble a fusion reactor here on Earth ;)))”… But the Chinese scientists didn’t get the joke — they get it seriously! Their researchers determined to find a major clean energy source have created an incredible artificial sun that can reach temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius. For comparison, the real sun’s core temperature is about 15 million degrees Celsius.

On Tuesday, Nov. 13th, The earth-based solar simulator EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) has reached mind-bending temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius!

^{EAST. Source: Institute of Plasma Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences}

In the announcement, it is said that collaborating with domestic and international colleagues, EAST team in Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CASHIPS) made significant progress along the China’s roadmap towards tokamak based fusion energy production.

EAST is a large, donut-shaped machine set inside a round box. Located on Science Island in Eastern China's Anhui Province, the project is using nuclear fusion to create immense heat; it costs a massive $15,000 a day just to turn on the machine.

The goal of the EAST is to understand nuclear fusion and to one day use it as an alternative source of power on Earth. This could pave the way for using clean energy – currently, nuclear energy created through fission leaves a long-lasting toxic waste.

^{EAST. Source: Institute of Plasma Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences}

Nuclear fusion needs very high temperature and great pressure, and since the latter can't be achieved on earth, people can only raise the temperature, which, according to current theory, must reach at least 100 million Celsius degrees. Therefore, the Chinese artificial sun’s successful achievement of 100 million Celsius can be said to reach the ignition condition of nuclear fusion.

Well, what’s the problem? Why don’t we have fusion already? Of course, that kind of temperatures should be held in a steady state. To resolve the particle and power exhaust which is of crucial importance for high performance steady state operation, EAST team has employed many techniques in controlling the edge localized modes and tungsten impurity in ITER-like operation conditions, along with active feedback control of divertor heat load.

The results of this artificial sun will be pricelessly important in the design of a third-evolution machine with large radium at 7 m, minor radium 2 m, toroildal magnet field at 6.5-7 Tesla and plasma current 13 MA… Whatever that means. Just don’t get surprised if you wake up one day and see all the oil companies on the stock market go broke. What a day it will be!

Go, China!

If you need the information from the source, try here:

Contact: ZHOU Shu
Hefei Institutes of Physical Science
Email: zhous@hfcas.ac.cn

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