Photos: China Turns On Futuristic ‘Artificial Sun’ Nuclear Fusion Reactor

Just a week after turning on its first domestically designed fission nuclear reactor, China has made another major leap by powering up an experimental fusion reactor, which has the potential to provide gigantic amounts of electricity without radioactive waste.

On Friday, the HL-2M Tokamak reactor was turned on for the first time in Sichuan’s capital of Chengdu, the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) announced.

In a fusion reaction, two hydrogen atoms combine to become a single helium atom, releasing colossal amounts of energy in the process – many times more energy than the inverse fission reaction, which powers conventional nuclear power plants by splitting big atoms such as uranium and plutonium. 

Photo taken on Dec. 4, 2020 shows the HL-2M Tokamak, China’s new-generation “artificial sun,” in Chengdu, southwest China’s Sichuan Province. The HL-2M Tokamak went into operation on Friday and achieved its first plasma discharge, according to China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).

Plus, where fission infamously creates destructive radiation alongside useful heat energy, a fusion reaction emits almost no radioactive particles or waves.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), hydrogen fusion does produce an unstable radioactive isotope of hydrogen called tritium, which emits a beta particle capable of being repelled by human skin and which quickly dissipates, with the tritium being returned to the reactor’s fuel supply as normal hydrogen. However, the longer-term effects of the reactor’s structural material to high-energy neutrons is a problem not yet solved.

The downside is that a fusion reaction is hard to keep going – really hard. In our sun, the weight of 332,000 Earths’ worth of gas pushing down into the center of the star provides the pressure required to generate fusion, but in Chengdu, they have to generate a huge magnetic field to create the necessary conditions.

The tokamak reactor design was created by Soviet physicists in the late 1950s and uses a torus shape to create a stable plasma equilibrium.

File photo taken on May 27, 2019 shows staff members of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) Southwestern Institute of Physics working in the vacuum chamber of the HL-2M Tokamak, China’s new-generation “artificial sun,” in Chengdu, southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

The Communist Party official newspaper People’s Daily noted on Twitter that fusion energy is key not only to China’s strategic energy needs, but also to enabling environmentally sustainable development.

The debut of the HL-2M reactor comes just a week after another nuclear power first for China: the powering up of its first domestically designed nuclear reactor. On November 27, the No. 5 unit at the Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant, a conventional fission reactor named Hualong One, was connected to the Chinese power grid, Sputnik reported.

Sourse: sputniknews.com