In a bid to achieve clean energy and reach higher temperatures naturally, China has achieved a remarkable step. For over 15 years now, China has been working on the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) model which replicates the energy generation process of the sun and makes an “artificial sun” in this process.
In the recent developments of this model, China has vanquished all the records after the model worked at the temperature of 216 million degrees Fahrenheit which is 120 million degrees Celsius for a period of 101 seconds, this “artificial sun” also achieved the highest temperature of 288 million degrees Fahrenheit (160 million degrees Celsius) for 20 seconds, which is like over eight times hotter than the sun. Sun usually burns at a temperature of 15 million degrees Fahrenheit.
The experimental operations began in the year 2006 and have been one of the key sources for China in the research around fusion since then.
This latest achievement by Chinese scientists is an important step in their country’s journey to produce clean and limitless energy, with a minimal amount of waste products. After their success, one of their officials stated, “This breakthrough is a significant progress and now our goal is to keep the temperature at a higher stable level for a long time.”
A notable achievement in this step is the raw material required to generate energy in the model or reactor, which is deuterium that is found generously on Earth’s cores unlike other non-renewable sources like coal and oil that are depleting on the face of the earth with each passing day.
EAST has previously generated a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius in its core plasma in November 2018, which is approximately seven times the temperature that is experienced on the core of the Sun. This reactor had sustained the 100 million degrees Celsius temperature for about 20 seconds in 2018 and 2020 as well. This feat has also been achieved by South Korea too.
However, experts state that there is still a long way to go for China’s experimental model ‘artificial sun’. It is believed that it will take a few more decades for a working reactor to emerge from its current experimental stages.
With the world desperately wanting to switch to clear and green energy, this fusion reactor model “artificial sun” is very important and once ready to use, will pave the way as a source to supply unlimited energy.