China’s “artificial solar” reactor has damaged its own world record for keeping a plasma very hot, marking a step on the long road to almost unlimited blank energy.

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) nuclear fusion reactor maintained a steady, highly confined loop of plasma — the high-energy fourth state of matter — for 1,066 seconds on Monday (Jan. 20), which more than doubled its previous best of 403 seconds, Chinese state media reported.

Nuclear fusion reactors are nicknamed “artificial suns” because they generate energy the same way the sun does: by transforming two light atoms into a single heavy atom using heat and pressure. The sun has much more stress than Earth’s reactors, so scientists compensate with temperatures several times warmer than the sun.

Nuclear fusion offers the potential of a near-unlimited power source without greenhouse gas emissions or much nuclear waste. However, scientists have been working on this technology for more than 70 years, and it’s likely not progressing fast enough to be a practical solution to the climate crisis. Researchers expect us to have fusion power within decades, but it could take much longer.

EAST’s new record won’t immediately usher in what is dubbed the “Holy Grail” of clean power, but it is a step towards a possible future where fusion power plants generate electricity.

This is a magnetic confinement reactor, or tokamak, designed to keep plasma burning frequently for long periods. Reactors like this have never reached ignition, which is the point at which nuclear fusion creates its own energy and sustains its own reaction, but this new record is a step toward keeping the confined and extended plasma loops that long reactors term they will need to produce electricity. .

“A fusion device will need to achieve robust operation at full power for thousands of seconds to enable self-sustained flow of plasma, which is imperative for long-term uninterrupted power production of fusion plants,” Song Yuntao said. The director of the Institute of Plasma Physics responsible for the fusion task at the Chinese Academy of Sciences told Chinese state media.

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EAST is one of several nuclear fusion reactors in the world, but ultimately they all consume much more energy than they produce. In 2022, the fusion reactor at the United States National Ignition Facility managed to briefly ignite its core using a different experimental approach than EST, relying on immediate bursts of power, but the reactor overall used more energy than it consumed.

Tokamaks like EAST are the most common nuclear fusion reactors. EAST heats up plasma and traps it inside a donut-shaped reactor chamber — called the tokamak — with powerful magnetic fields. For the latest record, researchers made several upgrades to the reactor, including doubling the power of its heating system, according to Chinese state media.

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The knowledge gathered through EAST will contribute to the advancement of other reactors, whether in China or internationally. China is part of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) program, which reaches dozens of countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

The ITER reactor, which is being built in southern France, contains the world’s most powerful magnet and will fire up in 2039 at the earliest. ITER will be an experimental tool designed to create sustained fusion for research purposes, but could pave the way for fusion power plants.

“We hope to expand foreign collaboration EAST and put fusion power into practice for humanity,” Song said.

Patrick Pester is the trending news editor at Live Science. His background is in conservation and he has worked with endangered species from all over the world. Patrick holds a master’s degree in foreign journalism from Cardiff University in the UK.

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