Beijing is close to building an efficient and inexpensive tokamak reactor
Chinese scientists are approaching the creation of an efficient tokamak reactor. In one of their latest experiments, they proved that the construction of such a facility could be much cheaper.
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In a laboratory the size of a football field in Shanghai, Chinese scientists fired powerful laser pulses at a pair of small gold cones in an attempt to reproduce the process of nuclear fusion in the heart of the Sun.
The cones, as small as the tips of a pencil, have narrow edges that face each other and emit hydrogen plasma. When two hot gas streams collide at the right time and place and in the right way, they trigger a fusion reaction, a process that can ultimately provide a source of infinite, sustainable energy.
With $ 156 million in government funding over six years, Zhang Zhe and colleagues at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing began their experiments at the Shenguang II laser facility in Shanghai last summer.
The research team has conducted three tests so far, with another scheduled for next month.
“Our goal is to achieve sustainable synthesis“Zhang said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. On energy production.”the cones can be mass-produced and loaded like bullets into a machine that will rotate and fire like a machine gun. “.
The golden cones evaporate after merging, but “the price of gold will be extremely small – if not insignificant – in the future operation of the power plantsaid Zhang Zhe.
The race for thermonuclear energy intensified in August, when researchers from the United States achieved energy power eight times greater than ever. Although output was still lower than energy input, the breakthrough gave hope and added pressure on research teams in other countries, including China.
This is currently the biggest problem of tokamak reactors. Theoretically, they would provide a huge amount of cheap and completely safe energy. For now, however, more energy is invested in them than they are able to produce.
However, scientists are convinced that fusion is achievable.
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