Inside China’s race to lead the world in nuclear fusion – The country has ambitious plans for fusion power plants to provide clean, limitless energy. Can they be realized?
Inside China’s race to lead the world in nuclear fusion – The country has ambitious plans for fusion power plants to provide clean, limitless energy. Can they be realized?
>The world’s most well-known fusion experiment is the US$22-billion [International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02247-2), a giant tokamak being constructed in southern France, to which China is contributing. And in recent years, ambitious firms in the United States and elsewhere have raised billions of dollars to build their own reactors, which they say [will demonstrate practical fusion power before state-led programmes do](https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-021-03401-w/index.html).
At the same time, China is fast pouring resources into its fusion efforts. The Chinese government’s current five-year plan makes comprehensive research facilities for crucial fusion projects a major priority for the country’s national science and technology infrastructure. As a rough estimate, China could now be spending $1.5 billion each year on fusion — almost double what the US government allocated this year for this research, says Jean Paul Allain, associate director of the US Department of Energy’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences in Washington DC. “Even more important than the total value is the speed at which they’re doing it,” says Allain.
>“China has built itself up from being a non-player 25 years ago to having world-class capabilities,” says Dennis Whyte, a nuclear scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge.
>Although no one yet knows whether fusion power plants are possible, Chinese scientists have ambitious timelines. In the 2030s, before ITER will have begun its main experiments, the country aims to build the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR), with the goal of producing up to 1 gigawatt of fusion power. If China’s plans work out, a prototype fusion power plant could follow in the next few decades, according to a 2022 road map ([J. Zheng *et al. The Innovation* **3**, 100269; 2022](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xinn.2022.100269)).
Status-Carpenter-435 on
well they;ve already won so its not much of a race
Frostivus on
After seeing their work on ‘advanced robotics’, I highly doubt it
rtjeppson on
Sure, as soon as some hacker lifts the plans from some western server…
jish5 on
Yes, and what’s more, the rest of the world is slowly surpassing America in the forefront of science, innovation, and medicine, and all because it’s not “profitable”.
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From the article
>The world’s most well-known fusion experiment is the US$22-billion [International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02247-2), a giant tokamak being constructed in southern France, to which China is contributing. And in recent years, ambitious firms in the United States and elsewhere have raised billions of dollars to build their own reactors, which they say [will demonstrate practical fusion power before state-led programmes do](https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-021-03401-w/index.html).
At the same time, China is fast pouring resources into its fusion efforts. The Chinese government’s current five-year plan makes comprehensive research facilities for crucial fusion projects a major priority for the country’s national science and technology infrastructure. As a rough estimate, China could now be spending $1.5 billion each year on fusion — almost double what the US government allocated this year for this research, says Jean Paul Allain, associate director of the US Department of Energy’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences in Washington DC. “Even more important than the total value is the speed at which they’re doing it,” says Allain.
>“China has built itself up from being a non-player 25 years ago to having world-class capabilities,” says Dennis Whyte, a nuclear scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge.
>Although no one yet knows whether fusion power plants are possible, Chinese scientists have ambitious timelines. In the 2030s, before ITER will have begun its main experiments, the country aims to build the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR), with the goal of producing up to 1 gigawatt of fusion power. If China’s plans work out, a prototype fusion power plant could follow in the next few decades, according to a 2022 road map ([J. Zheng *et al. The Innovation* **3**, 100269; 2022](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xinn.2022.100269)).
well they;ve already won so its not much of a race
After seeing their work on ‘advanced robotics’, I highly doubt it
Sure, as soon as some hacker lifts the plans from some western server…
Yes, and what’s more, the rest of the world is slowly surpassing America in the forefront of science, innovation, and medicine, and all because it’s not “profitable”.