China has once again proven themselves in the race to achieve fusion. On December 4, 2020, China successfully started up its fusion reactor to produce a full power plasma lasting for 10-seconds.
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Welcome fellow readers to our first in Energy News. Here we bring you the latest information in Energy Technology and Environmental Management. The idea of reporting on this type of information has been an interest of mine that I now try and bring to the STEM community.
China's First Fusion
Phys.Org reports that China's HL-2M tokamak powered-up for the first time, reaching temperatures of 150-Million degrees-C. Their achievement is great news considering that they collaborate with the European ITER. It is heart-warming to know that the search for knowledge crosses boundaries and cultures.
Interestingly enough, Phys.Org provides a comparison between fusion and fission. Their stance is that fusion will not produce radioactive waste when compared with fission and will have less risk of accidents.
Contrary to their article, fusion will produce radioactive waste. Insofar as risks of accidents, I feel that it's too early to tell. We are only at the design stage of producing a stable plasma. It's way too early to take a position that fusion won't it's own uneasy risks.
I feel science is taking the care necessary to develop safe and reliable fusion and that's okay. We just need to avoid the errors that occurred in other power production areas.
Video Summary
In Closing
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
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EDIT: Original heading stated that China was a new player in the fusion race. Like many countries, China has spent the last several decades improving upon test platforms to incrementally reach the conditions needed for stable fusion to occur. Thanks to @bossel for pointing out my initial error.