China's Fusion Reactor Reaches 100 Million Degrees Celsius (abc.net.au)

hackingbear shares a report from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The team of scientists from China's Institute of Plasma Physics announced this week that plasma in their Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) -- dubbed the 'artificial sun' -- reached a whopping 100 million degrees Celsius which is six times hotter than the core of the Sun. This temperature is the minimum required to maintain a fusion reaction that produces more power than it takes to run. The Chinese research team said they were able to achieve the record temperature through the use of various new techniques in heating and controlling the plasma, but could only maintain the state for around 10 seconds. The latest breakthrough provided experimental evidence that reaching the 100 million degrees Celsius mark is possible, according to China's Institute of Plasma Physics. "While the U.S. is putting new restrictions on nuclear technology exports to China, inventions and findings of EAST will be important contributions to the development of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)," writes Slashdot reader hackingbear. The reactor is currently being built in southern France with collaboration from 35 nations. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, it is expected to be "the first device to consistently produce net energy, producing 500 megawatts of clean and sustainable power."

Comments

Re:Sun's core too cold for fusion, sort of

[timeOday]

Oh, that reminds me when I asked my chemistry teacher why water would evaporate even below the boiling point. He said something similar, the temperature is the average but on occasion a molecule gets enough energy to exceed the threshold (thus cooling the others when it leaves with its heat). Similar? Or not?

ITER wont produce power

[angel'o'sphere]

It will run at 400 - 600 seconds and will produce more energy than it consumes, that is all. There is no power plant attached nor will there ever be: https://www.iter.org/sci/Goals

And the power production is not clean as long as we use deuterium + tritium, the reactor vessel will have to be replaced around every 10 years and discarded as highly radioactive waste.

Regarding sustainability: ITER will attempt to breed tritium ... lets see how good that works. Otherwise we had to farm tritium from the sea, which is energy intensive and causes another spot in the chain to work with an radioactive element.

Re: could only maintain the state for 10 seconds

[jd]

Not really. The only direct products you make will be Helium-4 (stable), Helium-5 and Helium-6. You could smash up or change isotope a carbon, nitrogen or oxygen atom, I suppose. But you're talking very short half-lives.

The concrete is a problem. Fortunately, the Iranians have a recipe that is less likely to powder or fail. So, with trade restored under the joint agreement, we're ok.

Oh.