Stars are some of the biggest generators of energy in the entire universe. From the humble red dwarfs
that burn steadily for billions of years to the biggest, densest, hottest neutron stars,
they’re all unimaginably huge power sources. What if we could harness the power of a star
without leaving Earth at all? This is Unveiled, and today we’re
answering the extraordinary question: is China really building an artificial sun?
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On December 23rd, 2021, a Long March 7A rocket launched from Wenchang, southern China.
It was carrying two classified satellites, and while that would be interesting enough in its
own right, a few weeks later the Long March 7A captured the world’s attention for another
reason. A video of the launch went viral on social media with the caption that China had launched an
“artificial sun” into orbit. It’s true that in flight, the rocket did look like a star,
but it definitely wasn’t a fake sun. However, this doesn’t mean that China’s top scientists
aren’t hard at work building something else, something that certainly IS an artificial
sun – or, at least, that will be one day. In January 2022, right around the time the
Long March video was going viral, news did break that China had an artificial sun and that it had
been switched on. This isn’t a sun designed to be launched into space, though; it’s a nuclear fusion
generator seeking to replicate the stellar fusion that happens in all living stars in the universe.
It’s called the EAST, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak, and is to-date the most
powerful and promising tokamak ever constructed. It ran for 1056 seconds, or 17 and a half minutes,
in a world-record-breaking feat, achieving temperatures of 158 million degrees Fahrenheit.
In contrast, the core of the sun reaches a temperature of 27 million degrees Fahrenheit.
This means that on Earth we’ve beaten the sun’s internal temperature almost six times over.
The reason this feat is so exciting is that it means we’re one step closer to finally developing
a nuclear fusion generator here on Earth. All currently operating nuclear power plants
work on nuclear fission, as atoms are thrown together and broken apart, releasing immense
energy that we then use to power our homes. But nuclear fission doesn’t create anywhere near
as much energy as nuclear fusion, a process that only normally occurs inside stars because stars
are the only places hot enough. Fusion is the process by which stars burn, taking immense
amounts of hydrogen and burning it up, creating helium in the process. That helium then goes on to
be fused itself into heavier and heavier elements, until the star runs out and ultimately dies.
Whether it dies with a whimper or a bang depends on the mass of the star,
but none of them last forever. By harnessing this power we could have an essentially endless energy
source on our hands, so it’s no surprise that many different countries have been working for
decades on methods to achieve this, with tokamaks one of the most promising inventions.
Tokamaks were initially devised by scientists in the Soviet Union in the 1960s,
and by the 70s the concept had been proven enough that many other countries jumped
on board to develop them. Indeed, the country that held the longest-running
tokamak record before China broke it in 2022 was France. The French Tore Supra tokamak
ran for 390 seconds in 2003 - so the EAST beat this record three times over.
In February 2022, the UK-based Joint European Torus (JET) also
made headlines when its tokamak produced 59 megajoules of energy over five seconds,
a considerable improvement compared to previous experiments. However, international efforts have
focused mainly on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in France, which upon
completion in 2025 will be the world’s largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor.
Tokamaks work by containing superheated plasma in a circular structure called a “torus”,
which looks like a donut, and using that heat and plasma to generate energy. For decades, scientists
around the world have been working on them, but physicists haven’t yet been able to solve a few
major issues in the current tokamak design. The big problem is that none of these
tokamaks have been able to “break even” on power consumption versus power generation. As it stands,
every tokamak, even the EAST, is consuming far more power than it’s yet been able to produce.
This means that they are totally unviable as power sources because they’re not really power sources
at all – they’re more like power leeches. This is the problem that China is working
at breakneck speed to try to solve. The EAST is never going to be a power generator, however. It
has “experimental” in the name for a reason, and it’s really just a way to test and develop the
technology. The fact that it’s been shattering so many world records is extremely exciting however,
and any advances in this area of science will be great for humanity regardless of
which country is leading the charge. Tokamaks, like nuclear fission,
are a form of clean energy, but with even fewer risks than a traditional nuclear power
plant. Though technically speaking, nuclear fission is a clean energy source, we all know
what happens when something goes wrong. You can end up with an environmental catastrophe
of massive proportions even from only a few mistakes. The world is still grappling with the
effects of 1986’s Chernobyl disaster and the 2011 nuclear meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan.
But despite the extraordinary temperatures tokamaks reach, they haven’t yet shown that
they have the same potential for danger. This doesn’t mean that danger couldn’t present itself,
especially when working with such tremendously hot plasma, but tokamak failures – called
“disruptions” – are far less dramatic than meltdowns. The worst one yet merely damaged the
wall of the tokamak itself. Most happen because the plasma moves in a way we don’t want it to,
which means it comes into contact with the walls and immediately begins to cool.
However, much like traditional nuclear power, tokamaks are expensive – significantly more
expensive, due to their experimental nature. The EAST has cost China $1 trillion so far to develop,
and it still hasn’t been operational for longer than 17 minutes. The technology needs to get much
better so that it can eventually pay for itself and fulfill its unlimited energy potential.
But China remains a world leader in green energy in general. While it’s true that China produces
the most net carbon emissions of any country - almost a third of all of them - it’s also got the
largest population. Per capita, emissions in China are lower than those in the US,
Russia, Japan, Canada, Germany, and many other countries besides. China’s been putting hundreds
of billions of dollars into green energy solutions in the pursuit of net-zero, and it gets closer to
this goal every year. As much as people may be concerned about nuclear energy, and despite the
huge expense of developing tokamaks, harnessing nuclear fusion is a necessary part of our future.
If we’re ever going to leave Earth and travel to the distant reaches of the galaxy,
we’re going to need power sources like this. And the only power source better than an actual
star is a star you can take anywhere you want. The potential for this technology is absolutely
mind-blowing. A Kardashev Type One civilization can use and store all energy available on its
planet, while a Type Two can harness the energy of its home star. Thanks to nuclear fusion, we could
potentially become a Type Two civilization without completely becoming Type One. As humankind’s power
needs continue to grow, extravagant energy solutions like this are going to become more
and more important. One day, fossil fuels will run out, and when they do it’s suddenly going to be
in many people’s best interests to start looking for a power source like a fusion generator.
Suddenly, the trillion-dollar expenditure will be nothing compared to the benefit to humans
and the potential for profit, especially once tokamaks are finally up and running. They’ll be
self-sustaining at that point, requiring much less labor than say, a coal mine. And unlike
other renewable energy sources, we won’t need to rely on Earth’s climate to provide this power.
If we can get such a generator working, it would be as constant as the sun itself, but without
having to worry about cloudy days or nightfall. Inside the tokamak would be endless daylight
and, therefore, endless power. It’s something that could even one day take us to the stars.
It isn’t destined to find its way into the sky, but the Experimental Advanced Superconducting
Tokamak is the future of energy. And that’s why China IS building an artificial sun.
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