China Is Building an Artificial Sun

[Mega6]

New chinese fusion reactor

"the HL-2M Tokamak, is the largest of its kind to date. A tokamak is a specific kind of fusion reactor that’s been theorized about since the 1950s, when Soviet scientists coined the term as a shortening of the Russian for “toroidal magnetic confinement.”

 

[KD5ZXG]

Loads o' tokiwacks been built. None has worked yet.
What besides largest makes this one any different?

 

[etudiant]

Loads o' tokiwacks been built. None has worked yet.
What besides largest makes this one any different?

True that none has yet been able to produce enough power to sustain itself, but they have steadily improved. The ITER version, currently under slow construction, is projected to produce 10x as much power as it needs to run.
Only problem with ITER is that as a multinational effort, most of the work focus is on administration, rather than the project itself. Once hoped to run by 2020, it is now not expected to do real fusion tests until the 2030s.
The Chinese expect to outpace ITER by building an updated one of their own.
I think they have an excellent chance of success, as the critical magnet technology has improved considerably since the ITER design was frozen and China has a good track record of doing big engineering projects on schedule.

 

[Daishi123]

Its China.....its going to fail amazingly. They can't even build a aircraft carrier worth a shit...and they are going to build a fusion reactor.....lol.

 

[Riccochet]

I'll wait until I can buy one on Wish

 

[SecretStash]

True that none has yet been able to produce enough power to sustain itself, but they have steadily improved. The ITER version, currently under slow construction, is projected to produce 10x as much power as it needs to run.
Only problem with ITER is that as a multinational effort, most of the work focus is on administration, rather than the project itself. Once hoped to run by 2020, it is now not expected to do real fusion tests until the 2030s.
The Chinese expect to outpace ITER by building an updated one of their own.
I think they have an excellent chance of success, as the critical magnet technology has improved considerably since the ITER design was frozen and China has a good track record of doing big engineering projects on schedule.

Maybe "on schedule" isn't necessarily a good thing when quality matters

 

[T4rd]

"They must heat and hold on to a gas at more than 100 million degrees Celsius—seven times the temperature of the sun’s core. Such heat strips electrons from atoms, leaving a plasma of electrons and ions, and it makes the ions travel fast enough to overcome their mutual repulsion and fuse."

Well that's just nifty.

 

[kirbyrj]

Well, hopefully they don't destroy the world along with their science project. I wonder what western country they stole their ideas from...

 

[Comixbooks]

They made an artifical moon like last year.

 

[Comixbooks]

 

[Sycraft]

Loads o' tokiwacks been built. None has worked yet.
What besides largest makes this one any different?

Just propaganda. If it was anywhere else it would be a news item along the lines of "Country is building the largest tokamak reactor ever to study nuclear fusion." However China loves to hype themselves up and also in Chinese culture being able to control nature is a real sign of power. So no surprise that Winnie the Pooh wants to hype this up as China having their own sun.

All that said, there's a reason to keep building and working on these because they have gotten better. No fusion reactor has ever reached a self-sufficient stable reaction nor have any generated more energy than put in, but it has been getting closer. Researchers keep trying different things and making improvements. Some day they may well figure it out and be able to start making reactors capable of producing power.

 

[TordanGow]

Its China.....its going to fail amazingly. They can't even build a aircraft carrier worth a shit...and they are going to build a fusion reactor.....lol.

That's a pretty head-in-sand statement. China is behind us technologically, until they're not...

 

[Jandor]

Not expecting anything from standard tech for fusion reactor. ITER is bad, China will build a bigger and worse one. Even if they work, they are too expensive and they will fail after a very short time of use. This is why they are only for testing. Those Tokamak are just very basically thought. There are other ways, much smarter.

 

[Daishi123]

That's a pretty head-in-sand statement. China is behind us technologically, until they're not...

All China can do is copy. Name one thing they've actually come up with their own.

 

[Mega6]

All China can do is copy. Name one thing they've actually come up with their own.

gunpowder about 850AD

 

[Krazy925]

We’ve been planning for this for 15 years.

 

[Mega6]