FUSION : The Future of Energy | How China’s artificial sun and France’s most powerful magnet is adding a new chapter in the Energy Industry?

We all know that energy is limited, you know the old saying “we can neither create energy nor destroy it”. Then what should we do to meet these increasing demands of energy by modern lifestyle. Well, a wise man said that nuclear energy is the future and to harness this energy with full potential we are creating temperatures of over 100 million Celsius!! Yes, you heard it right, it is hotter than the sun. So, we call it ‘ARTIFICIAL SUN’.

Recently China set a new world record for sustained nuclear plasma reaction which sustained temperature of 120 million degree celcius for 101 seconds, the past record holder was also China when it reached 82 million degrees for 10 seconds in 2018.

Machine that contains China’s artificial sun | Chinese Academy of Sciences

As a part of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project (ITER) , a global science project, Chinese ‘artificial sun’ is going to be the world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor expected to be operational in 2035. As many as 35 countries, including China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US are working on this project. The objective is to achieve and maintain a plasma temperature above 100 million C to harness nuclear fission.

China’s experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST) has achieved a plasma temperature of 120 million C for 101 seconds. Also, the scientist working on artificial sun has achieved 160 million C in 20 seconds. It is believed that the temperature of the core of the sun is 15 million C which means that we are able to achieve as much as around 10 times the temperature at the core of the sun. The ultimate goal of EAST is to create nuclear fusion like the Sun, using deuterium abound in the sea. Deuterium from one-litre of seawater can produce energy equivalent to 300 litres of gasoline through a nuclear fusion reaction.

France’s most powerful magnet 🧲

The magnet is referred to as the "beating heart of the machine." (Photo : ITER)

Research experiments and the testing of new technologies will help us to deliver fusion energy. F4E is coordinating the European contribution to the BA experiments. The resources are largely volunteered by Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

The world’s largest nuclear fusion project began its five-year assembly phase on 28 July 2020 in southern France, with the first ultra-hot plasma expected to be generated in late 2025.

France is going to get the world’s most powerful magnet for a fusion reactor that aims to replicate the process that powers the Sun. The magnet, known as the central solenoid, will make up the heart of the world’s largest fusion reactor, ITER, which means ‘the way’ in Latin. It will be a central component of France’s energy project.

The magnet will be 18 metres tall, 4.2 metres wide, and weigh around 1000 tonnes once fully constructed. With a magnetic field strength of 13 tesla, it will be about 280,000 times stronger than Earth’s own magnetic field, making it strong enough to lift an entire aircraft carrier weighing around 100,000 tons (90,700 metric tons), to 6 feet, yes you read right, 6 feet in the air.

The arrival of the Solenoid will make up the ITER Tokamak. (Photo: General Atomics)

This international experiment involves 35 countries with a team of over a thousand engineers and scientists and aims to prove the feasibility of sustained nuclear fusion to create energy. In nuclear fusion, smaller atoms are fused to create larger ones, a reaction that releases enormous amounts of energy.

ITER will be the largest fusion reactor yet once it is complete, with 2025 the current end goal. Engineers working on the project aim to make it the first reactor that will provide more energy from fuel than is required to sustain the fusion reaction - the plan is to create 500 megawatts of usable energy from an input of 50 megawatts.

Fusion reactors replicate the reactions seen inside stars like our very own Sun, where vast gravitational pressure and temperature allows the hydrogen atoms to merge and create helium atoms, releasing enormous amounts of energy in the process.

Also one more worthy point that should be mentioned is that unlike fission reactions, fusion doesn’t leave any harmful radioactive waste that needs to be dumped and that can cause damage to humans in any way. And in a fusion reactor plant, the risks of disasters like Chernobyl, are not simply there which gives it a huge edge in the long run as even if in future a fusion reactor will be constructed in a populated area, the residents there will not feel frightened like they do with current fission reactors.

We all know, the discovery and developments of fission technology has given us a curse in the name of Nuclear weapons, which is the most possible and practical way the world can end, but most pleasant and beautiful thing, even more than the points mentioned above, about Fusion reaction is that it cannot be used in any way for making Nuclear weapons. The only possible use is then is for civilian purpose, which is making electricity, producing cleaner energy which is the need of the hour as the global air quality standards are going down day by day and global warming is the immediate threat for human civilization and the development of technologies like Fission Reactors can give us a way to make the energy production environment friendly and creating a better future for our upcoming generations.