China Makes Breakthrough in Artificial Sun Research, limitless energy from nuclear fusion made poss

[beijingwalker]

China Makes Breakthrough in Artificial Sun Research

 

[zectech]

Spin the plasma, I believe clockwise IIRC, and see what happens.

 

[gangarambihari]

very good .

 

[Fawadqasim1]

Excellent
A great step towards fusion power generation.

 

[JohnWick]

I think this can be used as a most powerful fusion nuclear bomb.

 

[beijingwalker]

CHINA’S ARTIFICIAL SUN REACHES FUSION TEMPERATURES THRICE THAT OF THE REAL SUN
14 NOVEMBER, 2018 15:42 IST
At 100 million °C, the reactor attained the minimum temperature needed for sustained nuclear fusion.

Researchers from China's Hefei Institutes of Physical Sciences announced that China’s ‘artificial sun’ just became the hottest known nuclear fusion experiment on Earth — literally, with the plasma reaching 100 million degrees Celsius.

For some perspective, our solar system’s real Sun is only about 15 million degrees Celsius in comparison.

While that comparison in itself is mind-blowing, the temperature also has another important significance for nuclear energy researchers: 100 million degrees Celsius is thought to be the minimum temperature needed for self-sustaining nuclear fusion on Earth.

Representational image.

The artificial Sun (not to be confused with the 'artificial moons' China intends to send up to space soon), is a popular name given to one of the most promising nuclear fusion experiments to date. Designed to replicate the process our Sun uses to generate energy, researchers set up the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) fusion reactor in 2006.

A ‘Tokamak’ is a reactor design that resembles a donut — a donut that generates powerful magnetic forces to contain unimaginably hot plasma inside the reactor during nuclear fusion. The walls of a tokamak are built to absorb the massive amounts of heat from the continuous splitting of atoms in the reactor’s core.

The record-breaking East reactor disguising any and all signs of the its enormous power. Image courtesy: VCG

The process of nuclear fusion, where two hydrogen atoms combine in a reaction that produces an enormous amount of energy, is often called the ‘great white whale’ of global energy. Nuclear reactors like EAST are a means to exactly that: an almost infinite supply of energy that is clean.

One of the few hurdles to unleashing nuclear fusion as an energy source is sustaining the fusion reaction for longer than a handful of minutes. The longest recorded reaction is was at the Tore Supra tokamak in France (also known as WEST), for 6 minutes and 30 seconds in 2003.

Between the records set by EAST and WEST, could the world have an artificial Sun lighting up our homes at night in a few years?

https://www.firstpost.com/tech/scie...ures-thrice-that-of-the-real-sun-5548481.html

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

China is the rising star. No pun intended. Woot!

 

[El Sidd]

Allah hidayat de

 

[oprih]

Good job to China! Now watch out for the murican thiefs, they will try to steal any info they can about this amazing project.

 

[beijingwalker]

Fusion breakthrough as China's "artificial sun" reaches 100 million degrees
David Szondy
40 minutes ago

China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) achieved an electron temperature of over 100 million degrees Celsius in its core plasma(Credit: IPP)

The day of clean, limitless energy from nuclear fusion has taken another step closer after China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak(EAST) reached a core plasma temperature of over 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit). During a four-month experiment, the "Chinese artificial sun" achieved a temperature over six times greater than the interior of the Sun and a heating power of 10 MW.


Beginning operations in 2006, the Chinese designed and developed EAST is located at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CASHIPS) and is billed as an open test facility for conducting steady-state operations and ITER-related physics research by both Chinese and international scientists. And, like many other fusion experiments, the ultimate goal is to produce a practical nuclear fusion power reactor.

EAST is a tokamak reactor, which consists of a metal torus or doughnut that is exhausted to a hard vacuum and then injected with hydrogen atoms. These atoms are then heated by a number of different methods to create a plasma that is then compressed using a series of powerful superconducting magnets.

Eventually, the plasma becomes so hot and so compressed that the conditions inside the reactor mimic those found inside the Sun, causing the hydrogen atoms to fuse, releasing tremendous amounts of energy. The hope is that eventually a reactor can be built where the fusion reaction is self-sustaining, and the reactor generates more energy than it consumes.

EAST produced its breakthrough temperatures and densities for around 10 seconds by combining four different heating methods to create the plasma and spark the fusion process. In this case, the methods were lower hybrid wave heating (oscillating the ions and electrons in the plasma), electron cyclotron wave heating (using a static magnetic field and a high-frequency electromagnetic field), ion cyclotron resonance heating (accelerating ions in a cyclotron), and neutral beam ion heating (injecting a beam of accelerated neutral particles into the plasma).

However, the purpose wasn't just to peg the meter, but to also study how to maintain plasma stability and equilibrium, how to confine and transport it, and how the plasma wall interacts with energetic particles. In addition, EAST is used as a demonstrator of how to use radio frequency wave-dominant heating, maintain a high level of plasma confinement with a high degree of purity, maintain magnetohydrodynamic stability, and how to exhaust heat using an water-cooled tungsten divertor.

CASHIPS says EAST is being used to explore how to maintain electron temperatures of over 100 million degrees over long periods to further knowledge and aid the development of advanced reactors like the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) being built in France, the Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR), and the proposed DEMO (DEMOnstration Power Station). Achieving temperatures in excess of 100 million degrees Celsius – even if only for around 10 seconds – proves that it is possible to reach the temperatures required for nuclear fusion.
https://newatlas.com/fusion-china-artificial-sun-east/57237/

 

[RPK]

This need to be carefully validated by International Communities not used as weapon on other countries.
#nospace weaponization

 

[beijingwalker]

This need to be carefully validated by International Communities not used as weapon on other countries.
#nospace weaponization

Who is "international community"? US? China is also making artificial moons, should they also be viewed by the "international community"?

 

[RPK]

Who is "international community"? US? China is also making artificial moons, should they also be viewed by the "international community"?

US, EU,India,UN,Russia so on. all Space projects( what ever you call it) should be reviewed under #nospace weaponization

 

[IbnAbdullah]

Aoa

The fusion weapon people are so concerned about already exits it's called the fusion bomb. Using fusion reaction for bomb making was the easier part, making a fusion reaction based reactor that could replace fission reactors has been the hard part.

So I hope with these little breakthroughs coming in regularly, maybe we'd get there soon enough. Cleaner, more sustainable energy powered future.

...

 

[beijingwalker]

China's Nuclear Fusion Machine Just Smashed Temperature Records by Getting 6 Times Hotter Than The Sun

MIKE MCRAE
15 NOV 2018
For a brief moment earlier this year, a small spot in China blazed with such heat, the Sun would have been staring down at Earth feeling mightily jealous.

Scientists announced this week that the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor in Hefei has finally achieved a temperature exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius, setting a new record in fusion technology and bringing us closer to a new age in energy.

Harvesting the huge amounts of power released from the fusing of atoms is no easy feat. To throw these particles together with enough force, you need to either squeeze them hard, or slam them together with a mighty crunch.

And Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences has now shown this crunch is achievable.

Deep inside the Sun, hydrogen fuses together at temperatures of around 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit). That's with the added push of concentrated gravity.

If we want to achieve that on Earth, we need an oven that's a hell of a lot hotter. That is, nearly seven times hotter than the interior of the Sun. And then we need to hold that hot hydrogen soup in place long enough to make it worthwhile for producing energy.

If we can achieve that, the payoff would be massive. Unlike nuclear fission – where surplus energy comes from the decay of large atoms into smaller elements – nuclear fusion doesn't result in anywhere near as much radioactive waste. In fact, the end result of squeezing together isotopes of hydrogen is mostly helium.

Researchers around the world have been experimenting with different forms of technology that just might create enough heat to achieve nuclear fusion, which makes EAST just one of many facilities testing the limits of technology.

Some of the more promising approaches inject plasma into a giant metal doughnut, holding the cloud of charged particles in place with magnetic fields. This allows for sustained heating of the atoms, but requires some clever physics to keep the ring of plasma in place.

Stellarators, like Germany's Wendelstein 7-X, hold the squirming ring of plasma in place using banks of magnetic coils. They offer superior control, but struggle to hit those higher temperatures as a result.

Earlier this year the W7-X managed to heat helium to an impressive 40 million degrees Celsius. It's a big step up from previous efforts, but falls well short of the 100-million-degree-plus temperatures we need for that all-important fusion process to start.

Tokamaks like China's EAST reactor use the magnetic fields produced by the moving plasma itself to keep its wobble in check. This makes it less stable, but allows physicists to turn up the heat.

In 2017, the reactor celebrated an important milestone by holding plasma in a high energy confinement for 101.2 seconds.

Juggling hot atoms for this long was a vital step towards milking plasma for power, but now they had to turn the temperature up enough for its atoms to fuse and release more energy than the process consumed.

Getting the steps to line up takes a lot of experimentation and fine tweaking. EAST's procedure relied on multiple forms of heating in the right combination, creating an optimal plasma density.

The end result was a cloud of charged particles that contained electrons heated to more than 100 million degrees.

It's tempting to feel that we're tantalisingly close to a virtually endless supply of clean energy. And every milestone is a significant step towards that goal.

But there are still a number of challenges to meet. Take its fuel supply, for example.

Theoretically, the material feeds fusion reactions is in greater supply than fossilised hydrocarbons and uranium. It's plain old hydrogen.

Sadly, not just any kind of hydrogen will do right now – its isotope 'tritium' is preferred, and it isn't found in huge supplies. At least not on Earth.

Knowing how or when we'll overcome those kinds of hurdles is anybody's guess.

Still, hitting the right temperature was a big one, so it's worth holding out hope that fusion is still on the horizon.

Since its construction in 2006, the EAST reactor has been referred to as an "artificial sun". It's not unfair to say it might have been gloating all this time.

Now we can say it has truly earned its title.
https://www.sciencealert.com/china-...ficially-become-hot-enough-for-nuclear-fusion