my country's "artificial sun" is the world's leading weapon

| What is an artificial sun?

The so-called "artificial sun" is the advanced superconducting tokamak experimental device, also known as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) construction project. It is the largest thermonuclear fusion experimental project in the world so far. It aims to simulate the nuclear fusion of the sun on Earth and use thermonuclear fusion to provide clean energy for mankind. Nuclear fusion uses deuterium and tritium as fuel, and has three major advantages: safety, cleanliness, and unlimited resources. It is a strategic new energy source that will ultimately solve the energy problems of all mankind.

Artificial sun is a common name for controlled nuclear fusion, because the principle of the sun is nuclear fusion reaction. (Nuclear fusion reaction mainly relies on hydrogen isotopes. People's understanding of thermonuclear fusion began with the explosion of hydrogen bombs. Scientists hope to invent a device that can effectively control the process of "hydrogen bomb explosion" and allow energy to be continuously and stably output, and liken this type of device to an "artificial sun." The full name is "Fully Superconducting Tokamak Experimental Device." (Tokamak is the Russian abbreviation of "magnetic coil torus chamber", also known as a torrent. This is a "container" composed of a closed magnetic field, like a hollow donut, which can be used to confine plasma of ions).

| The origin of the artificial sun

100 years ago, Einstein foresaw that there was a huge amount of energy hidden in the nucleus. According to the mass-energy equation E=mc2 he proposed, two light nuclei can aggregate into a heavier nucleus under certain conditions, but there will be a certain loss of mass after the reaction, which will release huge energy. In 1939, American physicist Bethe confirmed that a deuterium nucleus and a tritium nucleus collided and combined into a helium nucleus, releasing a neutron and 17.6 mega-electron volts of energy. This discovery revealed the mystery of the sun's "burning". In 1952, when the first hydrogen bomb exploded, it became a reality for humans to create nuclear fusion reactions, but it was just an uncontrollable instantaneous explosion. Since then, scientists have been looking for ways to control the explosion of hydrogen bombs on a certain experimental device and then continuously extract its nuclear fusion energy.

In the 1970s, people made great progress in the study of confinement magnetic field. By changing the distribution and configuration of confinement magnetic field, the lateral drift problem of plasma particles was solved. A worldwide research boom of tokamaks was set off. The United States, Europe, Japan, and the Soviet Union built four large tokamaks, which later made decisive contributions to the research of magnetic confinement fusion.

| The significance of artificial sun

The sun is the largest source of energy on Earth. Its surface temperature is about 6,000 degrees Celsius and its core temperature is about 15 million degrees Celsius. It is like a blazing fireball, emitting energy equivalent to the complete combustion of 100 trillion tons of coal every second. The sun generates such a large amount of energy because of its continuous nuclear fusion reaction inside. The main raw material supporting this fusion reaction, deuterium, is extremely abundant on Earth. The easiest fusion reaction of hydrogen atoms is the fusion of its isotopes deuterium and tritium. The product of the drastic change, "helium", is very clean, with no carbon emissions, no radioactive waste, and no disasters such as fuel rod meltdown. It is more stable than wind and solar energy and is considered an ideal "ultimate energy source". Every liter of seawater on Earth contains 30 milligrams of deuterium, and the energy generated by the fusion of 30 milligrams of deuterium is equivalent to 300 liters of gasoline. It is estimated that there are about 40 trillion tons of deuterium in the ocean. In theory, the energy released by fusion reactions is enough for humans to use for tens of billions of years.

Once the "artificial sun" is successfully put into operation, the changes it will bring to the world will be revolutionary. Countries will no longer have to go to war for oil in the Middle East. Without the pollution caused by oil and coal mining, the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide, the shrinking of the Antarctic ice, the increase of the coastline, and a series of other problems that are currently troubling humans will disappear. It will bring unlimited clean energy to mankind, just like the sun gives us.

| How the “artificial sun” works

The "artificial sun" generates a lot of energy by fusing two lighter atoms into one heavier atom. However, there is a natural repulsion between atoms. To fuse two atoms together, extremely high temperatures and huge pressures are required. The highest temperature of the nuclear fuel in the experiment reached 130 million degrees Celsius, and the pressure was as high as 100 atmospheres. No material on Earth can withstand such harsh conditions. Scientists solved this problem by indirectly controlling the magnetic field. In order to induce controlled nuclear fusion, a giant superconducting magnet was installed inside the "artificial sun". When powered on, it can generate a strong magnetic field, similar to magnetic levitation technology, allowing the artificial sun to release energy without touching any equipment. After the nuclear fuel enters the device, scientists will heat the nuclear fuel with electricity to generate current inside them. Then the superconducting magnet can use the electromagnetic interaction between the magnetic field and the nuclear fuel to confine the fuel to the center of the device and prevent it from contacting the device itself. Therefore, high temperature will not affect the operation of the device, overcoming the instability of the device.

In the experiment, the advantages of fusion reaction are constantly being discovered - it produces 7 times more energy than nuclear fission, and the reaction product is helium without radioactive pollution. Even more perfect is that the future fusion power station will always be in a subcritical safe operation state. Once an accident occurs, the reaction will automatically stop, and there will be no nuclear leak accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima.

| my country’s “artificial sun”

The EAST all-superconducting tokamak device of the Hefei Institute of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, successfully created an "artificial sun" with a lifespan of 1,000 seconds. It used a domestically produced tokamak fusion experimental device to achieve a fusion discharge lasting 1,000 seconds, breaking the world record of 400 seconds previously held by the West. The highest temperature reached 160 million degrees Celsius, marking a huge breakthrough in China's research on controlled nuclear fusion. EAST is called the Eastern Super Ring. It is currently the only tokamak device in the world that has been put into operation and has a similar structure to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) to be built and uses all-superconducting magnets. In 1994, my country's first circular cross-section superconducting tokamak nuclear fusion experimental device, the "Hefei Super Ring" (HT-7), was successfully developed. The protagonist of this new world record, EAST, is the world's first all-superconducting magnet, non-circular cross-section tokamak experimental device independently developed by Chinese scientists on the basis of the "Hefei Super Ring". The main part is 11 meters high, 8 meters in diameter, and weighs more than 400 tons. It consists of six major components: vacuum chamber, longitudinal field coil, poloidal field coil, internal and external cold shields, external vacuum dewar, and support system. It is surrounded by large and small auxiliary heating, diagnosis, exhaust and cooling devices. The number of parts is equivalent to the total number of parts of 5 Boeing 777 aircraft. It also has a "super-combustible" core: ultra-high temperature, ultra-low temperature, ultra-high vacuum, ultra-strong magnetic field, ultra-large current and other extreme environments are "melted into one furnace".

In order to achieve a high temperature of over 100 million degrees Celsius, scientists used a variety of heating methods such as microwaves and neutral beams. The power of a household microwave oven is about 500 watts, while the total power of EAST is 34 megawatts, equivalent to heating by about 68,000 household microwave ovens. Scientists used a magnetic field to make a "cage" to suspend the fireball of hundreds of millions of degrees, so that all ionized plasma can only move along the magnetic field lines, preventing it from contacting any surrounding container materials, thereby protecting the device materials from being burned. EAST consists of 16 longitudinal field coils and 14 poloidal field coils, and the magnetic field strength generated is nearly 70,000 times the strength of the Earth's magnetic field.

In order to achieve a strong magnetic field, the "artificial sun" also needs an ultra-large current of more than 12,000 amperes, which is thousands of times stronger than an ordinary household air conditioner. The coils carrying large currents work at an ultra-low temperature of minus 269 degrees Celsius, which is about 1 meter away from the high temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius, creating a real-life version of "ice and fire". "This requires the realization of an 'ultra-high vacuum' with a strength of about one billionth of the surface atmospheric pressure to provide 'heat insulation'," said the researchers.

| The Prospects of “Artificial Sun”

So when will the controlled nuclear fusion power generation technology mature? In fact, in order to make controlled nuclear fusion power generation have commercial application value, it is necessary to further extend the fusion time, at least to more than 3000 seconds to reduce the cost of fusion power generation to a commercial range. The Chinese scientific team has begun to study this technology, striving to increase the fusion time to 3000 seconds by improving the existing tokamak device. At the same time, China has begun the engineering design of the first generation of controlled nuclear fusion power stations. It is expected that the construction of the first controlled nuclear fusion power station in human history will start in 2035, and it will be completed and put into operation before 2050. Once the controlled nuclear fusion power generation technology achieves a breakthrough, mankind will have an almost unlimited source of energy. Not only will there be no need to worry about energy shortages and environmental protection issues, but this technology can even be used to build interstellar spacecraft, opening up the great space era of mankind. my country is now a leading country in this field. I hope that Chinese scientists will make more achievements in the future.

(Picture from the Internet)