China just advanced another pawn in the high stakes international battle to achieve commercial nuclear fusion. China and the United States have been trading off breakthroughs in the race to unlock the holy grail of clean energy for years now, and the rate of technological advancement has been increasing exponentially as a result of heightened investment and policy support from the two largest economies in the world.
The nuclear plants that currently provide 10% of the global energy mix use nuclear fission – the splitting of atoms – to create energy. Nuclear fusion, the process that powers our sun, fuses atoms to create huge bursts of energy without the need for hazardous radioactive isotopes as fuel. Because of its high energy output and lack of hazardous waste output, nuclear fusion is often touted as a silver bullet solution for the clean energy transition.
“Fusion is a next-generation energy technology,” Jimmy Goodrich, a senior advisor for technology analysis at Rand Corp., was recently quoted by IEEE Spectrum. “Whoever masters it will gain enormous advantages—economically, strategically, and from a national-security perspective.”
However, building an “artificial sun” here on Earth is a monumentally challenging task. The process involves ultra-high temperatures that are extremely complex and costly to create and contain. To give an idea of just how hot these experiments are, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) created a new record this year when it achieved a sustained temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius.
Achieving these ultra-heated conditions requires enormous amounts of energy, so much so that fusion experiments almost always produce less energy than they consume. In 2022, scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California finally created net positive energy using laser technology in a world first for nuclear fusion. Since that breakthrough, NIF has repeated its success with increasing levels of energy output.
China has not yet achieved net positive energy generation with its own nuclear fusion experiments, but that could soon change. China is busily constructing a huge nuclear fusion reactor to rival the NIF in California. While the NIF laboratory relies on lasers to create the right conditions for fusion to occur, Chinese experiments have historically relied on a different kind of reactor involving enormous magnets to control plasma. But experts speculate that the newest Chinese fusion facility in Mianyang, Sichuan is a laser-based facility in the style of NIF, but much, much larger. However, it could also be a massive Z-pinch machine, a third type of fusion device using electrical currents.
Either way, this new facility will likely allow China to experiment with two different and promising approaches to nuclear fusion at once – a costly endeavor that few other nations could pull off. It’s likely just a matter of time before Beijing pulls far ahead in the nuclear fusion race.
“Even if China is not ahead right now, when you look at how quickly they build things, and the financial willpower to build these facilities at scale, the trajectory is not favorable for the U.S.” Decker Eveleth, an analyst at the research nonprofit CNA, told IEEE Spectrum.
And now, just this week, Beijing has unveiled another step forward in its nuclear fusion experiments. China has developed and successfully tested the largest ever radiation-proof robot to use in its nuclear fusion facilities. The three-armed machine is capable of lifting a whopping 60 tonnes of weight, making it an ideal piece of machinery for performing maintenance operations for massive nuclear fusion facilities. According to Nuclear Engineering International, “the technologies mastered in developing the robot are expected to contribute to the operation of next-generation nuclear fusion devices, both domestically and overseas.”
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
More Top Reads From Oilprice.com
Global Investors Flock to Middle East Infrastructure Opportunities
BHP Invests $555 Million to Raise Copper Production in Australia
TotalEnergies to Sell Non-Operated Oil Assets Offshore Norway