- HEFEI - A full superconducting
experimental Tokamak fusion device, which aims to generate infinite, clean
nuclear-fusion-based energy, will be built in March or April in Hefei,
capital city of east China`s Anhui Province.
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- Experiments with the advanced new device will start in
July or August. If the experiments prove successful, China will become
the first country in the world to build a full superconducting experimental
Tokamak fusion device, nicknamed "artificial sun", experts here
said.
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- The project, dubbed EAST (experimental advanced superconducting
Tokamak), is being undertaken by the Hefei-based Institute of Plasma Physics
under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It will require a total investment
of nearly 300 million yuan (37 million U.S. dollars), only one fifteenth
to one twentieth the cost of similar devices being developed in the other
parts of the world.
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- The new device will be an upgrade of China`s first superconducting
Tokamak device, dubbed HT-7, which was also built by the plasma physics
institute, in partnership with Russia, in the early 1990s. HT-7 made China
the fourth country in the world, after Russia, France and Japan, to have
such a device.
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- "The EAST project research results will be significant
for the International Thermonuclear Experiment Reactor, or ITER, in terms
of basic research both in engineering technology and physics," said
Wan Yuanxi, who is in charge of the project.
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- Wan said ITER will also be a full superconducting experimental
Tokamak fusion device with an advanced configuration, but much larger than
EAST.
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- The program, still in its initial stages, involves Russia,
Japan, the United States, the European Union, China and the Republic of
Korea.
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- Controlled nuclear fusion is seen as an efficient way
for people to generate infinite, clean energy to offset the dearth of fossil
fuels such as oil and coal.
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- Scientists believe that deuterium can be extracted from
the sea and an enormous amount of energy can be obtained from a deuterium-tritium
fusion reaction under huge temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius.
After nuclear fusion, the deuterium extracted from one liter of sea water
will produce energy equivalent to 300 liters of gasoline.
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- If a device is developed that can withstand temperatures
as high as 100 million Celsius degrees and control a deuterium-tritium
reaction, it will be as though an "artificial sun" had been created
able to supply infinite, clean energy for human beings.
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