Lance D. Johnson – Natural News Jan 31, 2025
- China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) sustained a steady-state high-confinement plasma operation for 1,066 seconds on January 20, 2025, breaking its previous record of 403 seconds.
- The breakthrough marks a significant step toward achieving nuclear fusion, a potentially limitless and clean energy source.
- EAST is part of a global effort, including the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France, to harness fusion energy.
- Fusion energy mimics the Sun’s process of combining hydrogen atoms to create helium, releasing vast amounts of energy without greenhouse gas emissions.
A new dawn for fusion energy
On January 20, 2025, scientists in Hefei, China, achieved a groundbreaking milestone in the quest for clean, sustainable energy. The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), nicknamed China’s “artificial sun,” sustained a steady-state high-confinement plasma operation for 1,066 seconds—nearly 18 minutes—shattering its previous record of 403 seconds set in 2023. This achievement is a critical step toward realizing nuclear fusion, a process that could revolutionize global energy systems by providing a nearly limitless, carbon-free power source.
The EAST project, led by researchers from the Institute of Plasma Physics (ASIPP) and the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), represents China’s growing leadership in advanced energy technologies. By improving its heating system to reach temperatures equivalent to 140,000 microwave ovens operating simultaneously, EAST has demonstrated unprecedented stability and efficiency in plasma confinement.
“Achieving stable operation at high efficiency for thousands of seconds is crucial for the success of fusion devices and the continuous power generation of future fusion plants,” said Song Yuntao, a nuclear physicist at ASIPP.
The science behind the “Artificial Sun”
Nuclear fusion, the process powering the Sun and stars, involves combining two light atomic nuclei, typically hydrogen isotopes, to form a heavier nucleus, releasing vast amounts of energy in the process. Unlike nuclear fission, which splits heavy atoms and is used in current nuclear reactors, fusion produces no long-lived radioactive waste and poses no risk of catastrophic meltdowns.
However, replicating the Sun’s fusion process on Earth is extraordinarily challenging. The Sun’s immense gravitational pressure allows fusion to occur at relatively “low” temperatures of around 15 million degrees Celsius. On Earth, scientists must compensate for the lack of such pressure by heating plasma to temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius—hotter than the Sun’s core.
EAST, a magnetic confinement reactor, uses powerful magnetic fields to contain and stabilize the superheated plasma. While the reactor has yet to achieve “ignition,” the point at which fusion becomes self-sustaining, its latest record demonstrates significant progress in plasma stability and confinement.
Global collaboration and China’s role
China’s advancements in fusion research are part of a broader international effort to harness fusion energy. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a $22 billion project in southern France, is the world’s largest fusion experiment. ITER, a collaboration among 35 nations, aims to produce 500 megawatts of fusion power from 50 megawatts of input energy for at least 400 seconds.
China, one of ITER’s seven principal members, has played a pivotal role in the project. The country is responsible for developing and manufacturing ITER’s magnet supporting system, a 1,600-tonne core component critical to the reactor’s structural integrity. The delivery of the final batch of these components in 2023 marked a major milestone for the ITER project, which is expected to begin operations by 2039.
EAST’s achievements also provide valuable experimental data for ITER and other fusion projects worldwide. “We hope to expand international collaboration via EAST and bring fusion energy into practical use for humanity,” said Song Yuntao.
“The ultimate goal of an artificial sun is to create nuclear fusion like the Sun, providing humanity with an endless, clean energy source, and enabling space exploration beyond the solar system,” said Gong Xianzu, head of EAST Physics and Experimental Operations.
For a world in desperate need of sustainable solutions, the “artificial sun” may one day shine brightly as a beacon of hope. For now, China is leading the way in revolutionizing technology and energy.
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Blah blah blah, here we go again. How many times have I heard similar crap from “scientists”?
This is one more sign of human insanity. More of the same of what has brought us to this mess in which we find ourselves right now.
This does not come without a price. It’s not “free” at all and far from being “clean”.
To make it short:
The sun represents the Source. The whole Earth and EVERYTHING on it was first an “idea” of the sun. Everything has consciousness, FYI, only different states thereof. Comparing ours with the sun’s is like doing it with that of a microbe against our own.
It´s Satan and his favorite game, namely, trying to imitate God and fool the lost souls.
So, get ready for a Frankenstein´s “sun” and the consequences of it, that is, the destruction of its creator.
In the same way, a smartphone, for example, is another form of “building” a human, and the consequences are the same: the annihilation of his soul and the mutilation of his Real power, which only the Source is able to bestow upon him.
Too bad its all bunk & simply more Commie Chink propaganda trying to exhibit to people how great and ‘advanced’ the Commies are.
Has anyone considered what would happen to the world population if we had virtually free energy massive expansion all wanting fridges a cars the planet would not sustain it
With such energy plants springing up everywhere, how do we know we are not going to turn the planet into an actual mini Sun? Oh, sure – “they will control it” – where only the elect superpower nations will have monopolies on the technology so that we can be “safe” from meltdowns and things getting out of hand, as they carry out their experiments, just like with the mRNA vaccines.
@ Wei B
Absolutely
unfettered Science becoming Satanism
it desecrates the Earth
All Life is Sacred
@ WEI B
same with this CERN collider in swizerland .
megalomaniacish satanism worshiping !
So “China’s” artificial sun shatters fusion records breaking its previous record of 403 seconds. Wow! Bravo!!!
I was born in 1959 and when growing up under the always polluted skies in an industrial part of W. Germany the sun these days was kind of yellowish and golden (on windy and clear days) and its rays comfortable and warm. As time moved on and by then traveling and working in other countries around the globe the sun’s color and its bright skies were very much the same. Fast forward again to the begin of the new millennium and to the sun of today: The only time the sun “shines” yellowish and golden now is for a few minutes during and after sun rise and dawn and the rest of the day it seems very white – like an overpowered CHINESE WHITE SUPER LED that not only burns any skin but is far to bright and hot to expect any comfort for any living being. Living in an rural part without any industries along the east coast of Australia the skies two decades later have constantly turned grey and dirty with or without the usual burning of sugar cane fields and annual bush fires, but the sun burns on, white, hot and uncomfortable through the “dirty” skies as it never did before – at least in this life time.
China the $cientific industry of the “peoples Republic” surely will lead ($elected parts of) humanity into a new golden age – simply because $cientists are NOT allowed to speak of their technical glitches/failures that have always obstructed the copying of a “Nature/God” they truly don’t understand.
American engineers are no longer very good in the US. They’ve taken a huge step back as India, Russia, China, Iran and even the Houthis have shown great progress with their Hypersonic missile achievements, which the US has yet to break into. The US produces the lamest engineers. Its education system has been dominated & retarded by Jewry.
MIT is a den of retards compared to the elite schools elsewhere. Most MIT students couldn’t gain admission to, for example, the IIT; Indian Institute of Technology. Too dumb.
I remember long ago when they started drilling for North Sea gas and oil. It was said at the time gas and oil would be cheaper for the consumer and everyone would benefit. However, in the UK at least, many ordinary people can hardly afford to pay their energy bills, and petrol and heating paraffin are expensive. It would seem that only large conglomerate corporations are benefitting.