China to Build World's First "Artificial Sun"

cletuii writes to tell us the People's Daily Online is reporting that China is planning on building the world's first "artificial sun" device. From the article: "The project, dubbed EAST (experimental advanced superconducting Tokamak), is being undertaken by the Hefei-based Institute of Plasma Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It will require a total investment of nearly 300 million yuan (37 million U.S. dollars), only one fifteenth to one twentieth the cost of similar devices being developed in the other parts of the world."

Comments

Re:This has been a pipe dream so far

[Voltageaav]

Or could create the biggest fireworks show yet seen on earth?

loss of containment

[dougTheRug]

Another thing to note about a fusion reaction is that pressure is required to keep it up. In the unfortunate event that the torus breaks open, the plasma will stop reacting.

Can a knowledgeable person comment about escaping neutrons, gamma rays and stuff in such an event? Could that lead to a nasty cloud of radioactive strontium or something similar to what we think of with "fission gone bad"?

Re:loss of containment

[Salsaman]

Yes, break even was recently achieved. Since at break-even, it is theoretically possible to run a fusion reactor indefinately (since you are not required to supply any more energy to keep it running), the problems must be related to containment/handling of the plasma: e.g either the magnetic fields are not stable, or some of the plasma leaks away over time, or the plasma becomes contanimated or otherwise reduces in reaction efficiency over time. I would guess it is some combination of all of the above.

Still, it would be nice to know exactly what the problems are with continuous running of a fusion reactor.

Re:Neutron embrittlement

[kravlor]

Disclaimer: I'm a plasma physicist, work in the lab next door, and know several of the people working on this project.

I think a distinction needs to be made between the use of fusion to produce net energy versus fusion for other purposes, such as a low-volume neutron generator. It is the latter which IEC devices currently find their use. For instance, a friend of mine is working on using the IEC device to produce medically useful isotopes; another works on detecting explosives/land mines via the emitted neutrons.

When it comes to making power, IEC grids suffer from the same neutronics issues. A real fusion reactor will be undoubtedly the harshest material environment on Earth. These neutronics material issues are of fundamental importance, so much so that a separate neutron irradiation facility will be constructed as a part of the ITER negotiations to study the topic.