MILAN, Jan 3 (Class Editori) — China is aiming at creating its “artificial sun”: China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) has announced the establishment of a new, state-owned company to accelerate the construction of a nuclear fusion reactor.
China Fusion Energy Inc. will bring together research and development on nuclear fusion energy that had previously been distributed among research institutes and private firms.
“In a recent meeting, the State Council clearly stated that controlled nuclear fusion is the only direction for future energy and that the field is now developing very rapidly in Europe and the US,” Chen Rui, Founder of Startorus Fusion, a hi-tech company focused on the commercial application of fusion energy that will be incorporated into the new Company, commented. “In this context, China’s central Government is beginning to pay more attention to the industry,” he added.
Along with the Company, an innovation consortium led by CNNC and consisting of 25 entities was formed to collaborate towards addressing several critical challenges in the field of nuclear fusion.
“Controlled nuclear fusion as an ideal solution to the global energy challenge has become the forefront of scientific and technological competition among major countries,” CNNC Vice President Cao Shudong stated on the Company’s website.
Most of the members of the innovation consortium are state-owned companies, such as China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Limited and the State Grid Corporation of China. In addition, four universities and a private company are involved.
According to information released by CNNC, 13 members have been tasked with taking on the first 10 challenges, which include high-temperature superconducting magnets, fusion reactor materials, and high-performance energy storage.
At the conference, an innovation fund was also established to aid in securing funding.
While the identity of China Fusion Energy’s major shareholders remains unclear, Chen stated that the company was founded primarily on the fusion technology of the Southwestern Institute of Physics (SWIP), which is affiliated with CNNC.
Similarly, the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) in the province of Anhui, along with the local government and private businesses, founded Neo Fusion, a company based on IPP technology, last year.
SWIP and IPP have long been the two major national forces involved in fusion research and development. Nuclear fusion, often referred to as “artificial sun”, generates energy by heating hydrogen atoms to over 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million Fahrenheit) before fusing them into heavier atoms.
Nuclear fusion does not generate the long-lived radioactive waste of nuclear fission, nor does it contribute to global warming. While there are several approaches to controlled nuclear fusion, the majority of research has focused on “magnetic confinement” technology, which heats and compresses plasma in a huge donut-shaped reactor known as a tokamak.
(Source:Class Editori)
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