China to build world's first "artificial sun" experimental device
A full superconducting experimental Tokamak fusion device, which aims to generate infinite, clean nuclear-fusion-based energy, will be built in March or April in Hefei, capital city of east China's Anhui Province.
Experiments with the advanced new device will start in July or August. If the experiments prove successful, China will become the first country in the world to build a full superconducting experimental Tokamak fusion device, nicknamed "artificial sun", experts here said.
The project, dubbed EAST (experimental advanced superconducting Tokamak), is being undertaken by the Hefei-based Institute of Plasma Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It will require a total investment of nearly 300 million yuan (37 million U.S. dollars), only one fifteenth to one twentieth the cost of similar devices being developed in the other parts of the world.
The new device will be an upgrade of China's first superconducting Tokamak device, dubbed HT-7, which was also built by the plasma physics institute, in partnership with Russia, in the early 1990s. HT-7 made China the fourth country in the world, after Russia, France and Japan, to have such a device.
"The EAST project research results will be significant for the International Thermonuclear Experiment Reactor, or ITER, in terms of basic research both in engineering technology and physics," said Wan Yuanxi, who is in charge of the project.
Wan said ITER will also be a full superconducting experimental Tokamak fusion device with an advanced configuration, but much larger than EAST.
The program, still in its initial stages, involves Russia, Japan, the United States, the European Union, China and the Republic of Korea.
Controlled nuclear fusion is seen as an efficient way for people to generate infinite, clean energy to offset the dearth of fossil fuels such as oil and coal.
Scientists believe that deuterium can be extracted from the sea and an enormous amount of energy can be obtained from a deuterium-tritium fusion reaction under huge temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius. After nuclear fusion, the deuterium extracted from one liter of sea water will produce energy equivalent to 300 liters of gasoline.
If a device is developed that can withstand temperatures as high as 100 million Celsius degrees and control a deuterium-tritium reaction, it will be as though an "artificial sun" had been created able to supply infinite, clean energy for human beings.
Source: Xinhua
This is a quite a breathtaking article, and it shows the vigour with which humans, together with a power surge all their own, can develop an idea, and propel the race as we know it, further forward, at least in theory.
Human nature will always bring such enterprises somewhere on the globe, it is in our make-up, and like other such dramatic mini-evolutions/renaissance, it is inevitable that the long-hidden might of China, (at this moment of the worlds economic history), would evolve such techniques and experiments, monumental projects etc. The capability of China, for our future is enormous as this article reveals, and it is not unique at all, as there are countless others well underway.
It was recently said in the Chinese Parliament, that China needs to move forward in the field of science, and I think we can see a future where they not only move forward, but even leave us in their wake, just as Britain has this year slipped beneath China in the economic rankings.
However, this article reveals the involvment of many other nations, (and that should bring hope), something missing from the past around the world.
I just hope the rush doesn't crush the equilibrium needed for the stability of life...the biggest danger for any sizeable country whose economy grows at staggering speed. (The dam project for example).
For now, I will admire. The future is (almost) unknown...though even that will become known too.
May I add one thing, and that is this,
恭喜发财 ~~!!