Input Stories

Good news for nuclear fusion: China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak recently beat its own record, containing H-mode plasma for more than 17 minutes (Popular Mechanics). 
 
What’s going on: “In 2023, the fusion reactor … successfully contained a steady-state high-confinement (or H-mode) plasma for 403 seconds. Now, a new announcement from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, says that EAST has now smashed that record, containing H-mode plasma for 1,066 seconds, or a little over 17 minutes.” 
 
Why it’s important: “Reactors like [EAST] have never achieved ignition, which is the point at which nuclear fusion creates its own energy and sustains its own reaction, but the new record is a step toward maintaining prolonged, confined plasma loops that future reactors will need to generate electricity” (Live Science). 
 
An “artificial sun”: EAST is among several nuclear fusion reactors—or “artificial suns”—worldwide, and the data gathered from it will support other “suns.” 

• China, along with the U.S., U.K., Japan, South Korea and Russia and other nations, is part of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor program. 
• The ITER reactor, now being built in France, contains the most powerful magnet in the world. It is set to begin operation around 2039 and “could pave the way for fusion power plants,” according to Live Science.