China intimidates in nuclear fusion. The construction of its own iter advances at full speed

The way to a destiny as challenging as the nuclear fusion Commercial must necessarily be full of small conquests. Of achievements that may seem modest, but that, in reality, are milestones that place us a little closer to an ambitious goal that does not pursue anything other than help us solve our energy needs without continuing to emit greenhouse gases.

In this context Iter monopolizes much of attention. And it is understandable that it is so. After all, it is a project with a huge wingspan, which is also led by the European Union. In fact, this organization is assuming together approximately 50% of the total cost of a plan in which the United States, Russia, China, Japan, India and South Korea also participate.

However, the commitment of public origin for nuclear fusion is not condensed only in Iter. And it is not limited only to the European Union. Not much less. Europe is pointing Very important scientific milestonesbut there are other countries that are also being very high, and that, precisely, do not move in the orbit of the West. In fact, two of them, probably the most outstanding, are China and South Korea.

The Chinese experimental reactor CFETR is extraordinarily promising

China that, as we have seen, actively participates in Iter’s tuning, has been engaged in the development of an experimental nuclear fusion reactor for several years at least as ambitious as the latter. It’s called CFETR (Chinese Fusion Engineering Testing Reactor), A denomination that we can translate as a test reactor for Chinese fusion engineering. The engineers of the country led by Xi Jinping completed their conceptual design in 2015 taking as a starting point the Chinese fusion reactors East, HL-2a (M) and J-Text.

CFETR has much in common with Iter. In fact, it aspires to complement the machine that is being built in the French town of Cadarache, and, at the same time, it is nourished by the knowledge generated during the design and development of Iter. Anyway The construction of the CFETR reactor It is already underway. And advances at a very good pace. In fact, just two days ago the experts of the Chinese commission that certifies the nuclear facilities gave the final approval to the first section of the reactor vacuum chamber.

This is the gigantic component that we can see in the cover photography of this article. The CFETR reactor vacuum chamber will consist of seven other sections such as this, will have a height of 20 meters and will be made of stainless steel of very low carbon content. Inside, fusion reactions between the deuterium and tritium nuclei will occur that will be magnetically confined in a plasma that will exceed 100 million degrees Celsius.

The most interesting thing is that this machine will operate in two phases. During the first of them, he will prove that he is able to generate up to 200 MW of energy, as well as sustain a tritium production ratio greater than 1. This simply means that will produce more tritio than consumeso he will be able to self -abuse from this radioactive hydrogen isotope. During the second phase of operation, the CFETR reactor will pursue more than 1 GW of power, so it will become a demonstration machine that, if everything goes well, will be happened by the first commercial fusion energy plants.

Image | Xinhua News

More information | China Science

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