China Claims Successful Fusion Power Test

SeaDour writes, "China claims to have carried out a successful test of its experimental thermonuclear fusion reactor. But what exactly made this test 'successful' is not clear. From the article: 'Xinhua cited the scientists as saying that deuterium and tritium atoms had been fused together at a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius for nearly three seconds. The report did not specify whether the device... had succeeded at producing more energy than it consumed, the main obstacle to making fusion commercially viable.'" China is a participant in the 10-nation ITER project to build a fusion reactor in the south of France by 2015. The article quotes the research head of ITER as saying, "It was important for China to show that it is part of the club. Here are English language versions of the Chinese news release: announcement, background.

Comments

Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie.

[VitrosChemistryAnaly]

There was that incident a while back of a [b]North Korean[/b] scientist faking his results in a cloning experiment. That scientist then came clean and blamed the enormous pressure on scientists in that society/government. Perhaps the GP was making an assumtion based on similar political structures as opposed to racial background. I admit being extra sceptical about press releases coming out of the PRC.

It was a South Korean scientist who admitted to faking his results.

You may not know, but South Koreans are not Communists.

However, I am a scientist. And, guess what, my wife is from South Korea. We've had a number of discussions about Hwang Woo-suk (the scientist in question).

I can state, as a scientist, that there's a lot of pressure to get certain results. If you don't get some kind of results you don't get grants. You don't get grants, you can't continue your research.

My wife states, as a South Korean, that there can be a lot of cultural pressure to succeed and that it can be quite overwhelming at times.

I think that the GP (my GGP) was saying that due to all the cultural pressures it may be too tempting for Chinese scientists to fake results.