Internal temperature 200 million degrees… Chinese man-made sun goes into operation in 2020

Fusion power is expected to be the next generation of energy. In addition to ITER, an international nuclear fusion test aimed at operating in 2025, there is also General Fusion, a private company that is aiming to start operation in 2025. In the midst of this, China is drawing attention by announcing that it will operate HL-2M, a nuclear fusion reactor in 2020, five years earlier than other international projects.

According to Chinese reports, the HL-2M, the next-generation controllable nuclear fusion research device, completed its main system in June 2019 and is proceeding smoothly. He then revealed that the nuclear fusion reactor, called the artificial sun, is expected to start operating in 2020.

In November 2018, China began operating the EAST test as a superconducting electromagnet tokamak type fusion energy test with an internal plasma temperature of 100 million degrees. However, according to the place where HL-2M is being manufactured, the plasma temperature of HL-2M is expected to be up to 200 million degrees. Considering that the solar core temperature is 15 million degrees, it is calculated that the artificial solar temperature in China is 13 times that of the real one.

One expert pointed out that the Tokamak-type nuclear fusion reactor adopted by China’s HL-2M is different from other nuclear fusion reactors in that it can flexibly form a magnetic field. Usually, the internal material for confining high-temperature plasma in a narrow layer of several centimeters to several millimeters in width is damaged, but HL-2M can prevent damage by controlling the plasma inside a flexible magnetic field.

If the progress of the Chinese project is going smoothly and the experiment is expected to begin in 2020, the research results obtained accordingly are expected to contribute not only to the experiment and operation undertaken by China in the ITER project, but also to the construction of a future fusion reactor. In addition to the EU, the United States, Russia, and China, 35 countries including Korea, India, and Japan are participating in ITER to cooperate to realize nuclear fusion technology. Related information can be found here .