China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) Sets New Fusion Record

China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) Sets New Fusion Record

China's EAST, also known as the "Artificial Sun," has set a new record by maintaining a steady-state high-confinement plasma operation for over 1,000 seconds, reaching a temperature of 100 million °C.

A tokamak is a device that uses magnetic fields to confine plasma in a donut-shaped structure, enabling the harnessing of fusion energy.

Significance of This Achievement:

• It represents a major step toward the development of fusion-based nuclear reactors, which could serve as alternatives to other clean energy sources like wind and solar.
• This breakthrough could help address the global energy crisis and combat climate change.

Advantages of Nuclear Fusion:

• High Energy Output: Fusion produces far more energy than any other current energy source.
• Abundant & Affordable Fuel: Fusion relies on cheap, readily available materials such as deuterium, tritium, hydrogen, and lithium, which are in nearly unlimited supply.
• Environmentally Friendly: Fusion has a zero-emission footprint, meaning it does not contribute to greenhouse gases or global warming.
• Safe and Clean Process: The only byproduct of fusion reactions is helium, an inert gas. Tritium, a radioactive substance with a short half-life, is also recycled in the process, eliminating the production of long-lived radioactive nuclear waste.

Challenges of Nuclear Fusion:

• Extreme Temperature Requirements: Fusion requires temperatures of hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius—much higher than the core of the Sun.
• Plasma Containment: At these extreme temperatures, matter exists in a plasma state, where atoms are split into positively and negatively charged particles. Maintaining the stability of plasma to extract energy is a major challenge.
• Magnetic Confinement: Strong magnetic fields must keep the plasma suspended within a confined space to prevent it from touching the reactor walls.

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