Energy News - China
China has once again proven themselves in the race to achieve fusion. On December 4, 2020, China successfully started up its fusion reactor to produce a full power plasma lasting for 10-seconds.
Welcome to Energy News
Welcome fellow readers to our first in Energy News. Here we bring you the latest information in Energy Technology and Environmental Management. The idea of reporting on this type of information has been an interest of mine that I now try and bring to the STEM community.
China's First Fusion
Phys.Org reports that China's HL-2M tokamak powered-up for the first time, reaching temperatures of 150-Million degrees-C. Their achievement is great news considering that they collaborate with the European ITER. It is heart-warming to know that the search for knowledge crosses boundaries and cultures.
Interestingly enough, Phys.Org provides a comparison between fusion and fission. Their stance is that fusion will not produce radioactive waste when compared with fission and will have less risk of accidents.
Contrary to their article, fusion will produce radioactive waste. Insofar as risks of accidents, I feel that it's too early to tell. We are only at the design stage of producing a stable plasma. It's way too early to take a position that fusion won't it's own uneasy risks.
I feel science is taking the care necessary to develop safe and reliable fusion and that's okay. We just need to avoid the errors that occurred in other power production areas.
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In Closing
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Thanks again, fellow readers, for following me along on this HIVE journey. I look forward to learning, blogging, and writing to every one of you.
EDIT: Original heading stated that China was a new player in the fusion race. Like many countries, China has spent the last several decades improving upon test platforms to incrementally reach the conditions needed for stable fusion to occur. Thanks to @bossel for pointing out my initial error.
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And China, given its large population, has the most incentive to look into fusion.
(FYI, C-squared is no more.)
Thank you for your response. China. They have the will and resources to succeed in this endeavor. Another form of fusion we now have the technology for is Hydrogen-Boron fusion. Scientists can initiate this process by utilizing ultra-high lasers to ignite the fuel. The surprising part of this process is that it won't require the extreme temperatures created by "normal" magnetic confinement like with the ITER or internal confinement used by the National Ignition Facility.
I didn't know about C-squared. Thanks for letting me know.
"Another player has entered the fusion power race...China."
Not really, China has been in the fusion research since at least the 90's:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HT-7
I think, HL-2M is the 6th or 7th Tokamak in China.
Thank you for pointing out my error friend. It is much appreciated. I will edit the post accordingly and assigned credit to your discovery. Clearly, given that so many countries have spent decades researching the topic, including China, that they can't possibly be a new player. I should have wrote that they have demonstrated success in this field.
No problem. Not really your fault, because the text in the article you linked to was partially a bit ambiguous. (Perhaps because they took it from some Chinese propaganda site.)
Yeah, I kind up jumped into the flow of the article despite having reviewed the history of fusion technology. Writing can make you quite passionate when you get into the flow.
https://twitter.com/Bhattg18/status/1337026304286179331
I think that this is very good for their population..
I believe so as well. China is shaping up to be quite an economic and technological powerhouse.
True fact.
Awakening of a giant while the world sleeps. China can and will achieve anything she sets her mind to.
I certainly agree. They keep things pretty close to the chest, and when they act, the world notices and, sometimes, quivers.
I agree with you too. :-)
Have a great weekend!
Good news for energy sector and I hope their achievement will lower the electricity cost in the future
I think it's great news. It's always good to see collaboration on a global scale. It means we're willing to ignore our own issues and collaborate to accomplish something great.