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posted by martyb on Monday April 29 2019, @01:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the too-cheap-to-meter dept.

China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) recently became the first facility in the world to generate plasma temperatures of 100 Million degrees Celsius (180 Million Fahrenheit).

For comparison, the temperature at the core of the Sun is a paltry 15 Million degrees Celsius (27 Million Fahrenheit)

EAST is part of the multi-billion dollar International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project which seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a power source. ITER is funded by the EU, USA, India, Russia, South Korea, Japan, and China.

China's quest for clean, limitless energy heats up

Wu Songtao, a top Chinese engineer with ITER, conceded that China's technical capabilities on fusion still lag behind more developed countries, and that US and Japanese tokamaks have achieved more valuable overall results.

But the Anhui test reactor underlines China's fast-improving scientific advancement and its commitment to achieve yet more.

China's capabilities "have developed rapidly in the past 20 years, especially after catching the ITER express train," Wu said.

In an interview with state-run Xinhua news agency in 2017, ITER's Director-General Bernard Bigot lauded China's government as "highly motivated" on fusion.

China is also planning a separate fusion reactor that it hopes will be able to generate commercially viable fusion power in about thirty years and has already promised six billion yuan ($890 million) to that project.


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  • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday April 29 2019, @02:20PM

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Monday April 29 2019, @02:20PM (#836257)

    What about Charles De Gaulle airport?

    https://www.thoughtco.com/charles-de-gaulle-airport-terminal-collapse-3972251 [thoughtco.com]

    Or - dare I say it - Grenfell tower (the cladding which caused problems was pretty new). Nb: I don't think this anecdotal cherry-picking demonstrates anything, rather it shows that by picking some BBC news story or other all you get is confirmation of whatever bias you happen to have this week.

    > Reference: close to half a century of buying "made in china" stuff.

    That's like saying USians can't manufacture stuff because of McDonalds. McDonalds is a great product - it performs exactly as designed, cheap and tastes like ****; much like the cheap Chinese rip-off stuff you are buying.

    I would also add that tarring 1.4 billion people with the same brush is ridiculous. It's like slagging off Scotland because of Italy, or vice-versa.

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