The Sun is every new day. Poetically, the Sun has been a metaphor for a doorway for fresh starts and blissful endings. It is considered nature’s gift of gold. However, man on Earth has yet again found a way to “create his own sunshine.”
You read that right! The “artificial Sun” is a nuclear reactor that generates energy through a fusion process quite similar to the Sun. Inside the Sun, protons fuse together through a series of steps and yield helium. This results in the release of energy that keeps the Sun hot. The experimental reactor’s goal is to replicate this process, using deuterium from the sea to provide a clean energy supply. This project is called Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) and has achieved significant milestones since commencing operation in 2006. Lately, it has made headlines for maintaining a steady-state high-confinement plasma operation for 1066 seconds, setting a new world record and reaching a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius.
This project holds utmost significance, because fission based nuclear power is the only non carbon emitting source known to man that can be controlled. Scientists regard nuclear fusion as the holy grail of energy. Unlike fission, which is used in atomic weapons and nuclear power plants, it does not emit any greenhouse gases. This technology, thus, promises a sustainable alternative to harness energy and alleviate the energy crisis.
The nuclear reactor is yet to achieve “ignition”, which is the point at which nuclear fusion creates its own energy and sustains the reactions for a continuous energy supply. However, the new record is an encouraging step towards maintaining prolonged, confined plasma loops that may power future reactors.