Energy Sources

 

China boasts "artificial sun": its nuclear fusion reactor reaches 120 million degrees for 101 seconds.

It is the energy that promises to solve all our problems, but poses colossal challenges. Nuclear fusion is nevertheless a small step closer to becoming a reality, because in China they have managed to reach extreme temperatures for longer than ever.

In fact, his Tokamak reactor reached a plasma temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius, and it did so for 101 seconds. There they already boast of having managed to create their artificial sun: one that is 10 times hotter than our star.

Things get hot

The state news agency Xinhua indicated that last Friday the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) located in the city of Hefei managed to reach that astonishing temperature and keep it there for almost two minutes.

Why did China build an artificial sun?

In fact, the reactor managed to go further, and for 20 seconds it reached 160 million degrees Celsius. The achievement far outstrips that of last year, when EAST achieved 100 million degrees Celsius for 20 seconds. The same was achieved by South Korea a few months ago.

The Chinese "artificial sun" is one of many the ITER project is trying to create fusion reactors that generate clean and unlimited energy. The idea is to replicate the nuclear fusion reactions that occur in the Sun, which has a temperature of 15 million degrees Celsius.

For this, it is necessary to generate extreme temperatures and maintain them for very long periods, but stabilizing this plasma hotter than the Sun is a challenge that has not yet had a definitive answer.

China's achievement is certainly an important step towards solving this problem, but we will have to be (very) patient, and a commercial solution is not expected until 2060.