The national team of controlled nuclear fusion was established, and the "artificial sun" ushered in a multipath competition

Our reporter Suo Hanxue reports from Beijing

Controlled nuclear fusion has been described as an "artificial sun", that is, using the sun's fusion mode to produce unlimited clean energy, which is the next generation of energy that the world is competing for.

"Towards the end of the year, we are contacted by investment institutions and media every day. Shaanxi Transwarp Energy Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Transwarp Energy") told the China Business News reporter, "Now everyone knows that this is the future development direction of energy." ”

The core members of the founding team of the company are all from the fusion team of the Department of Engineering Physics of Tsinghua University, and it is currently one of the top teams systematically engaged in the research of controlled fusion of magnetic confinement in China. "Although the technology is still in the early stages, according to the current development, it should be commercially available within 10 years. He told reporters.

The national team for fusion technology is also being assembled. On December 29, 2023, the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Future Industry Promotion Conference with the theme of "Nuclear Power Sets Sail for the Future of Fusion" was held, and the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Innovation Consortium composed of 25 central enterprises, scientific research institutes, universities, etc. was officially announced.

So far, a number of domestic technical routes have been formed.

A variety of tests of capital, talent, and technology

At the end of 2023, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States successfully carried out repetitive ignition of nuclear fusion for 4 times, becoming a new milestone in the industry. The first fusion ignition means that a net energy gain is generated from the fusion reaction.

In theory alone, the amount of clean energy produced by controlled nuclear fusion is almost limitless. This means that the energy output is already higher than the energy input. This is very significant. A person from the State Power Investment Corporation who conducts nuclear power research told reporters.

"Not all companies are able to participate in controlled fusion research, and it requires a particularly large investment upfront," he said. "The amount of upfront technology development alone can be as high as billions of yuan.

The technical route of Transwarp is to use magnetic confinement to control the plasma and let it float in the air, and at the same time, to heat the plasma by magnetic reconnection, which can be simply understood as a kind of self-heating.

The company used the SUNIST-2 equipment to preliminarily verify the feasibility of the technical solution, and so far the device has invested a total of 150 million yuan, including site renovation and team operation.

Transwarp plans to thoroughly verify the engineering feasibility of the next-generation device, CTRFR-1, to achieve that the plasma output energy is greater than the input energy. The budget for the next-generation device has reached 1 billion yuan.

"There is a lack of talent in the industry, a lack of experts. The interviewees all agreed that the current situation was present.

The reporter learned from the China Nuclear Power Department that the first batch of key technical tasks of the controllable nuclear fusion innovation consortium were undertaken by 13 central enterprises, a total of 10 items, mainly for the fusion engineering of high-temperature superconducting magnets, fusion reactor materials, high-power energy storage and tritium-producing cladding and other four core areas, to carry out concentrated research.

In addition to talent, the challenges of equipment manufacturing are also very large. The existing nuclear power equipment can no longer meet the needs of nuclear fusion.

"Our current nuclear power technology is fission, not fusion. The current temperature of a fission high-temperature reactor is 700 degrees Celsius, and the temperature of a cryogenic reactor is 200 degrees Celsius. But the temperature produced by fusion is much higher than that. This places very high demands on the technology of the equipment. The aforementioned person said.

The reporter noted that in the list of controllable nuclear fusion innovation consortiums, there are many traditional nuclear power equipment manufacturers, including China Dongfang Electric Group, China North Industries Group, China Baowu Iron and Steel, China Academy of Mechanical Sciences, Yangtze River Three Gorges Corporation, China First Heavy Industries, Harbin Electric, etc.

The technology race is heating up

A person from Shaanxi Transwarp Energy Company said that the current experimental task is very heavy and the time is very tight.

Nuclear fusion refers to a form of nuclear reaction in which atoms with small masses polymerize with each other under certain conditions (such as ultra-high temperature and high pressure) to form new nuclei with heavier mass, accompanied by the release of huge energy.

The reporter learned from the website of the National Energy Administration that China's new generation of "artificial sun" device (HL-2M) under the leadership of the Southwest Institute of Physics of Nuclear Industry of China National Nuclear Corporation achieved a plasma current of more than 1 million amperes (1 trillion amperes) on the afternoon of October 19, 2022, creating a new record for the operation of China's controllable nuclear fusion device, marking an important step forward in the mainland's nuclear fusion research and development from fusion ignition, ranking among the first phalanx in the world, and ranking among the top in the world in terms of technical level.

The new generation of "artificial sun" device (HL-2M) independently designed and built by the Southwest Institute of Physics of China National Nuclear Corporation was completed and realized its first discharge on December 4, 2020.

According to information from Tsinghua University, in July 2023, Tsinghua University's new concept magnetic confinement nuclear fusion exploration device, China United Spherical Tokamak-2 (SUNIST-2), was completed and discharged for the first time.

SUNIST-2 is a spherical tokamak with the strongest magnetic field and the highest plasma performance in mainland China (as shown in the figure below), with design parameters of a large radius of 0.53 meters, a small radius of 0.33 meters, a magnetic field of 1.0 Tesla, and a plasma current of 0.5 trillion amperes. The SUNIST-2 is equipped with a pair of movable internal polar field coils, multiple sets of fixed external polar field coils and segmented central solenoids, and a modular energy storage magnet power supply with a single output current of up to 110 kamperes and a total power of nearly 100 MW.

"Now it's looking for the best technical route. A person from Transwarp Juneng Company told reporters.

At this stage, it is not yet possible to achieve a "big unification" model in which various technologies learn from each other.

In 2023, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council will launch the implementation of the Future Industry Sailing Action, clarifying that the field of controllable nuclear fusion is the only direction for future energy. The future industry sailing action is to focus on the direction of 15 key industrial fields such as a new generation of mobile communications, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and new materials, and promote central enterprises to accelerate the layout and development of strategic emerging industries.

Li Jiangang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said: "In less than 10 years, you will definitely be able to see a lamp lit by nuclear fusion in Hefei, China." ”

At present, controlled nuclear fusion, as an ideal solution to human energy problems, has become the forefront of scientific and technological competition among major powers.

(Editor: Hao Cheng Proofreader: Zhang Guogang)