BEIJING, Jan. 23 -- It was learned from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) that it will have completed the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) which aims to explore infinite and clean energy resources of nuclear fusion by this March or
April.
By then, Hefei will become the first institute in the
world to have built an all-superconducting non-circular section nuclear fusion
experiment facility, which is generally known as an artificial sun.
The energy resource crisis has begun to threaten the
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| JET Pulse #64159 - View of a plasma from
the KL1 CCD video camera from behind a quartz window(Source:
CRIENGLISH.com) |
orld, as oil, coal and other
types of non-renewable energy resources will be used up in a century. Scientists
recommend the extraction of deuterium from sea water and the ignition of nuclear
fusion of this element in temperatures as high as 100 million degrees Celsius.
In nuclear fusion, deuterium abstracted from one kilogram of sea water will be
able to produce as much energy as that of 300 liters of gasoline.
Invention of a facility that can withstand the
temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius and control deuterium and atomic
fusion to ensure steady and continuous energy output is equal to invention of an
artificial sun, which can provide infinite and clean energy like the sun, as sea
water is virtually inexhaustible.
In 1990, the CAS Institute of Plasma Physics built
China's first superconducting tokamak equipment HT-7, making China the fourth
country in the world to have such equipment after Russia, France and Japan. In
2000, scientists at this institute began to build a new-generation
all-superconducting non-circular section tokamak equipment on the basis of HT-7
and gave it the new name EAST.
As an upgraded product of HT-7, EAST brings China
into the globally leading group in nuclear fusion research. It is also a key
project of China's ninth five-year-plan. EAST started overall assembly in
2003.