The Hefei Institute of Physical Science under the Chinese Academy of Sciences is set to complete the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) by March or April 2006.
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The European Joint European Torus (JET) is a nuclear fusion reactor. Nuclear fusion represents a significant advancement in the development of nuclear energy. It is not capable of causing pollution like current nuclear reactors that use plutonium and uranium. |
By that time, Hefei will become the first institute in the world to construct a doughnut-shaped, fully superconducting reactor, also referred to as an artificial sun.
The ongoing energy crisis is beginning to threaten the world as oil, coal, and other non-renewable energy sources are depleting. Scientists propose extracting deuterium from seawater and initiating nuclear fusion of this element at 100 million degrees Celsius.
In nuclear fusion, the deuterium extracted from 1 kg of seawater can generate energy equivalent to that of 300 liters of gasoline.
Constructing a reactor capable of withstanding 100 million degrees Celsius and controlling the nuclear fusion of deuterium aims to ensure stable, continuous power generation, akin to creating an artificial sun. The sun has a nuclear fusion reactor at its core.
This type of reactor can provide a clean, limitless energy source similar to that of the sun. Meanwhile, seawater is virtually inexhaustible.
When heated to hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius, a mixture of deuterium and tritium—the two isotopes of hydrogen—will fuse together to create helium and high-speed neutrons. The heat generated by the neutrons will be used to operate turbines.
Superconducting magnets will hold the plasma suspended in the center of the doughnut-shaped reactor. Plasma is a hot, ionized mixture of the two hydrogen isotopes—deuterium and tritium.
In 1990, the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Plasma Physics Institute constructed HT-7, the country’s first superconducting nuclear fusion reactor. With HT-7, China became the fourth country in the world to possess such a device, following Russia, France, and Japan.
In 2000, Chinese scientists began constructing a new generation, fully superconducting doughnut-shaped reactor based on HT-7, named EAST. EAST has positioned China among the leading nations in the field of nuclear fusion research.
This project is also a key initiative in China’s 9th five-year plan.
Minh Sơn
