China Just Made a Major Breakthrough In Nuclear Fusion Research (techienews.co.uk)

New submitter TechnoidNash writes: China announced last week a major breakthrough in the realm of nuclear fusion research. The Chinese Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), was able to heat hydrogen gas to a temperature of near 50 million degrees Celsius for an unprecedented 102 seconds. While this is nowhere near the hottest temperature that has ever been achieved in nuclear fusion research (that distinction belongs to the Large Hadron Collider which reached 4 trillion degrees Celsius), it is the longest amount of time one has been maintained.

Comments

Re:I am not a physicist but...

[Harlequin80]

It is the second Tokamak reactor that China has built and it has been around for about 10 years. There is no inherent reason to disbelieve them. They have come a long way from 20 years ago.

From what I have read China are claiming a significantly lower temperature than the recent German test, approx 30 million degrees K lower, but a much longer duration. The Germans also believe that their system will comfortably run for much longer, the recent operation was just a test so potentially we are seeing a point where engineering capabilities can produce the accuracy of design needed for tokamaks to work.

Re: I am not a physicist but...

[bill_mcgonigle]

An interesting trend to watch, even if this one doesn't turn out to be verified, is that China is where most of the the significant energy research is happening.

The US will be buying most of its advanced energy tech from China in just a couple decades. A couple decades ago that would have seemed unconscionable.

Say what you want about the relative historical value of the two governments, but one stymies progress with fear-based regulations and denial and the other takes the engineering approach to solving problems. Only one of those can drive prosperity - the leads to despair.