China could produce electricity from an “artificial sun”, using fusion, within a decade if the project wins final approval from the government in Beijing, a lead scientist was cited by the South China Morning Post as saying.
Speaking at a carbon control conference in Beijing on Sunday, Professor Song Yuntao, director of the Institute of Plasma Physics at the Academy of Sciences in Anhui province's capital Hefei, said construction of a nuclear fusion reactor could be completed by the early 2030s. Fusion technology can become a source of endless supply of clean energy by simulating the nuclear fusion process in the sun.
The Chinese government is said to have instructed scientists to prepare for a China Fusion Engineering Testing Reactor (CFETR) with the intention of building a large testing facility in Hefei. However, the project has yet to receive the final seal of approval.
China hopes that CFETR will become the first facility that succeeds in producing electricity with the heat from fusion. The technology is both complex and costly, with the reactor heating hydrogen to temperatures estimated to reach 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million Fahrenheit) or higher.
If all goes according to plan, CFETR is expected to produce power of 200 megawatts to generate electricity at the first stage of its operation. This would be the equivalent of a small-scale coal-fired power plant. According to Song, China relied on Russian hardware and technology in the early stages of its fusion research.
In May, a simulation device in Hefei - Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) - set a new world record when its “artificial sun” achieved a plasma temperature of 120 million degrees Celcius for 101 seconds, and 160 million degrees Celsius for 20 seconds. The experiment required scientists to confine the hot gas with an extremely strong magnetic field generated by superconductors.
The Chinese project now plans to increase the burning time to 400, and then to 1,000 seconds.
“The development of magnetic confinement nuclear fusion is as fast as the development of computer central processing unit chips,” Song said.
The research has been touted as benefitting several sectors. It has already enabled China to increase by 10,000 times its production of superconducting materials, needed in sectors ranging from transport to medical equipment. Song said that between 60 and 70 percent of the superconducting materials overseas are bought from China. With the deadline for meeting carbon neutrality set for 2060, China hopes to begin mass construction of fusion energy plants to facilitate the ambitious targets.
Other countries are working on similar projects: construction has nearly been completed on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in southern France, slated to start operations in 2025. However, the project - set to cost the countries involved (including China) between US$45 billion and US$65 billion - has been mired in delays.
The winding facility of the ITER ( the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), in the CEN of Cadarache, is pictured in Saint-Paul-Lez-Durance, southern France, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017
© AP Photo / Claude Paris
Song said progress in France is being closely followed by Beijing, with the Chinese scientists using ITER technology to boost their own fusion reactor projects.
“The US proposed to generate electricity with pilot nuclear fusion power stations built by the government and private companies between 2035 and 2040… The UK proposed to commercialise nuclear fusion energy by 2040,” Professor Song added.