China to make an artificial sun

The Mullinator

The Mullinator

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http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/22/050241&threshold=-1

A full superconducting experimental Tokamak fusion device, which aims to generate infinite, clean nuclear-fusion-based energy, will be built in March or April in Hefei, capital city of east China's Anhui Province.

Experiments with the advanced new device will start in July or August. If the experiments prove successful, China will become the first country in the world to build a full superconducting experimental Tokamak fusion device, nicknamed "artificial sun", experts here said.
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You also have to like some of the comments left by a few slashdot users:

"Is China getting a civilization advance for this, or can they update all energy units for half the cost once this is complete? Mr. Chairman! We have completed a great wonder...Artifical Sun"
 
The Mullinator said:
"Is China getting a civilization advance for this, or can they update all energy units for half the cost once this is complete? Mr. Chairman! We have completed a great wonder...Artifical Sun"
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As long as it's read by spock.
 
thenerdguy said:
You are steeling my news. :)

Anyways sounds kinda cool.
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whaaa? I'm not stealing any news...
shifty.gif
 
Well...artificial sun means Hydrogen being fused to Helium...so they are making Fusion...which takes a ton of energy to do...unless they discovered something else, I doubt this will be practical.
 
I concur. How the hell are they going to get the resources to pull this off?
 
Aweshens.
the future is NOW!... Well it's actually now, because by the time you read that first 'NOW', that will be the past.... So will this writing... BAH!
 
dream431ca said:
Well...artificial sun means Hydrogen being fused to Helium...so they are making Fusion...which takes a ton of energy to do...unless they discovered something else, I doubt this will be practical.
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Yes, it is fusion of 2xH into He, which is an extremely advanced and difficult (and therefore expensive) process, but it does yield a not trivial energy surplus. This energy will not be cheap (hydro power (waterfalls and dams), for example, is extremely cheap in comparison to any other source of electricity) but China is running out of options, and as possibly the strongest government-controlled economy in the world they have the resources to do it.

Let's hope they put safety first. None of us would like it much if this really did turn into an artificial sun.

.bog.
 
How did the manage the superconductivity part? As I've understood it, fusion has been shown to be possible by the Russians by levitating the reaction inside a magnetic vacum bottle, but the energy required to produce the magnetic field would always outweigh the energy produced by the reaction unless a cheap means of creating a superconductor was discovered. Also the energy cost of extracting deuterium from sea water.
 
lol, Somehow I doubt they would LITERALLY create an atrificial Star. Im sure it takes far more energy that all the energy on Earth
 
wouldnt this be like in Spiderman? And the sun keeps growing and growing till we all die and cant have sex ever again?
 
Technically it would be a very very very small artificial star. If for whatever reason the container broke, it wouldn't grow and devour the earth, it would just fizzle out and cool as the reaction loses energy to the surrounding environment and has no more fuel to use. Might be very hot for a short while, but nothing catastrophic.
 
Dont be ridiculous. The laws of Thermodynamics (Sp?) basically state you cant create or destroy energy, and you cant produce more that you put in. While the energy of a sucsessful experiment could be potentially enormous, nothing could continue to increase in size indefinately
 
Llama said:
Dont be ridiculous. The laws of Thermodynamics (Sp?) basically state you cant create or destroy energy, and you cant produce more that you put in. While the energy of a sucsessful experiment could be potentially enormous, nothing could continue to increase in size indefinately
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/cue Clarky003
 
Llama said:
Dont be ridiculous. The laws of Thermodynamics (Sp?) basically state you cant create or destroy energy, and you cant produce more that you put in. While the energy of a sucsessful experiment could be potentially enormous, nothing could continue to increase in size indefinately
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Correct. So if you wanna produce a massive amount of energy, you have to put in the same amount or more.
 
Correct, but with sustained fusion.. even though you require a constant fuel supply to keep it going the fusion reaction visibly pushes more energy out than visibly is going in 'releasing the energy of atom'.

Id still like to see a better understanding of where that energy is coming from because there may be more inexpensive subtle ways to access it as cold fusion, sono, and bubble fusion have shown.

Also seeing as the present thermodynamic laws only apply to 3 dimension's its clear there isnt any real attempt to understand the relationship between the reaction within the 4D model of vacuum to better understand the immense ammount of energy released within the reaction.

Think about it this way, think about conservation in 4 dimension's and think of universal relationships from that perspective. Where did the energy come from to create the big bang, etc.. You need 4th Dimensional energy exchange to allow this to happen. Two plates close together in a Vacuum physically move together, the energy source cannot be seen although observably a small amount of energy under this circumstance is inputed for physical manifestation, no physical 'work energy' is inputed, under the condition's we have extracted vacuum energy our so called 'free energy'.

I have to make this point.. we know every atom has a duality as a wave and a particle depending on how its measured, the uncertainty principle is misleading as these two factors are a result of the measuring equipment only, not the nature of atoms structure. Simply put our western 3 dimensional models are woefully inadequet to fully understand phenomena in particle physic's, along with the casimir effect and Aharonov Bohm effect, so again with fusion we are blindly trying to copy an aggressive and demanding natural process without understanding it better before hand, which if we did then it may yield more subtle and efficient ways to extract that extra energy from vacuum.
 
Is this a toroidal fusion reactor design they have finally got to work efficiently or is this a new concept?
EDIT: Nvm, it is a toroidal reactor.
 
clarky003 said:
Correct, but with sustained fusion.. even though you require a constant fuel supply to keep it going the fusion reaction visibly pushes more energy out than visibly is going in 'releasing the energy of atom'.

Id still like to see a better understanding of where that energy is coming from because there may be more inexpensive subtle ways to access it as cold fusion, sono, and bubble fusion have shown.

Also seeing as the present thermodynamic laws only apply to 3 dimension's its clear there isnt any real attempt to understand the relationship between the reaction within the 4D model of vacuum to better understand the immense ammount of energy released within the reaction.
Click to expand...

Ok..first of, you don't really need a 4D model to portray this sort of thing. And, releasing the energy of the atom may push more energy out, but that's not what this is about. This is about fusion...which takes so much energy to accomplish. Fission does not, but fusion does.
 
dream431ca said:
Ok..first of, you don't really need a 4D model to portray this sort of thing. And, releasing the energy of the atom may push more energy out, but that's not what this is about. This is about fusion...which takes so much energy to accomplish. Fission does not, but fusion does.
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Yeah but regardless, if you put more energy in initially but then enough is released to sustain the reaction then it is worthwhile.
 
Of course a 4D model would work in your favour if you can understand and include the source of the energy and better understand the construct of the atom. Seeing as within a 4D model all that virtual and potential energy is considered real even before its released, so if you can effect the underlying virtual potential makeup you could possibly trigger the reaction from the inside out, rather than from the physical resource gobbling outside in, which is no joke especially when you need next to no extra energy to reverse engineer an already existing EM property which coexist's with its virtual counterpart which under Myron evans theory can be used to interfere with the natural behaviour with the atom.

so in laymen's terms..

3D model.. only observable energy is real virtual potential isnt considered as a working factor.

4D model.. observable energy and virtual potential energy is real

which opens up a whole new area for interaction.

and subsequently if you affect the virtual stuff, it has an in to out direct impact on the physically observable stuff.

Its tough to understand unless youve had a look through some of the new supposedly acclaimed practical unified field theories Myron Evan's in particular and experiment's in particle physic's. Just read about the discovery on the B(3) component of the photon.
 
Wait, won't that require machinery that will withstand two million degrees celcius?
 
clarky003 said:
Of course a 4D model would work in your favour if you can understand and include the source of the energy and better understand the construct of the atom. Seeing as within a 4D model all that virtual and potential energy is considered real even before its released, so if you can effect the underlying virtual potential makeup you could possibly trigger the reaction from the inside out, rather than from the physical resource gobbling outside in, which is no joke especially when you need next to no extra energy to reverse engineer an already existing EM property which coexist's with its virtual counterpart which under Myron evans theory can be used to interfere with the natural behaviour with the atom.

so in laymen's terms..

3D model.. only observable energy is real virtual potential isnt considered as a working factor.

4D model.. observable energy and virtual potential energy is real

which opens up a whole new area for interaction.

and subsequently if you affect the virtual stuff, it has an in to out direct impact on the physically observable stuff.

Its tough to understand unless youve had a look through some of the new supposedly acclaimed practical unified field theories Myron Evan's in particular and experiment's in particle physic's. Just read about the discovery on the B(3) component of the photon.
Click to expand...


Ok, so what your saying is, in a 3D model we only see energy that we can see and in a 4D model we not only see the energy that we can see but we can also see energy that is virtually there, so what that means is we can see energy that is not there. I think that's what your trying to say. Because virtual energy is like the "what if" kind of thing.
 
ríomhaire said:
Wait, won't that require machinery that will withstand two million degrees celcius?
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Fusion happens at Billions of degrees. At least I believe so anyway.

EDIT: OOPS. Double post..sorry.
 
Chernobyl?.....or is that just English spelling

I want to go to that fake beach in China. Or was it Japan.
 
clarky003 said:
Correct, but with sustained fusion.. even though you require a constant fuel supply to keep it going the fusion reaction visibly pushes more energy out than visibly is going in 'releasing the energy of atom'.
Click to expand...
Yes it releases the energy when nucliei are forced together.

Id still like to see a better understanding of where that energy is coming from because there may be more inexpensive subtle ways to access it as cold fusion, sono, and bubble fusion have shown.
Click to expand...
We do however have to remeber that it emits virtually nothing that damages the enviroment, and the radiocative waste it produces has a significantly lesser half life.
Also seeing as the present thermodynamic laws only apply to 3 dimension's its clear there isnt any real attempt to understand the relationship between the reaction within the 4D model of vacuum to better understand the immense ammount of energy released within the reaction.
Click to expand...
Yes, and more importantly to harness that energy as well, assuming the model is correct.
Think about it this way, think about conservation in 4 dimension's and think of universal relationships from that perspective. Where did the energy come from to create the big bang, etc.. You need 4th Dimensional energy exchange to allow this to happen. Two plates close together in a Vacuum physically move together, the energy source cannot be seen although observably a small amount of energy under this circumstance is inputed for physical manifestation, no physical 'work energy' is inputed, under the condition's we have extracted vacuum energy our so called 'free energy'.
Click to expand...
Why do you think the forth, it is currently theorised that there are 12 spacial dimensions, we can't say for sure where the energy comes from.

I have to make this point.. we know every atom has a duality as a wave and a particle depending on how its measured, the uncertainty principle is misleading as these two factors are a result of the measuring equipment only, not the nature of atoms structure. Simply put our western 3 dimensional models are woefully inadequet to fully understand phenomena in particle physic's, along with the casimir effect and Aharonov Bohm effect, so again with fusion we are blindly trying to copy an aggressive and demanding natural process without understanding it better before hand, which if we did then it may yield more subtle and efficient ways to extract that extra energy from vacuum.
Click to expand...
Of course the models can't stand up to the complexity of the reality, but trying to model it on something like an extra dimension, a mamoth task.
 
Uriel said:
What happens if it blows up?
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Not a lot in theory, it is a lot safer than fission reactors.
The idea is that the fusion components can be added slowly rather than "having all your eggs in the same basket" as with fission reactors.
 
Why do you think the forth, it is currently theorised that there are 12 spacial dimensions, we can't say for sure where the energy comes from.
Click to expand...

Thats string theory, It really doesnt matter how many dimension's there are, we are interested in Vacuum.. the potential amount of energy that exist's within space which in our time frame seems infinite, for practical reason's you use a 4th infact you use 5. 6 - 12 are possibly irrelevant as they dont provide any 3D practical solutions.

But yes I agree with you guy's and its the next step, I must recommend you read about Kaluza and Klien's 5D gravity field if you havnt already, it very nicely unifies gravity and EM and indicates practical application when you introduce the B(3) component of the photon.
 
The Chinese are all wrong.....we just need to modify our phasers.
 
short recoil said:
Not a lot in theory, it is a lot safer than fission reactors.
The idea is that the fusion components can be added slowly rather than "having all your eggs in the same basket" as with fission reactors.
Click to expand...

Not alot?? Were talking about Billions of degrees. But if it does blow up, it is a lot safer but, there will still be some radiaiton, because of the fission.
 
dream431ca said:
Not alot?? Were talking about Billions of degrees. But if it does blow up, it is a lot safer but, there will still be some radiaiton, because of the fission.
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Actually very little will happen. I mean this describes the worst case scenerios:
The major conclusions reached by the SEAFP team in 1995 were that fusion has very good inherent safety qualities; there are no chain reactions and no production of 'actinides'. The worst possible accident originating in a fusion power station could not breach the confinement; any releases could not approach levels at which evacuation would be considered.

The radiotoxicity of a fusion power station's waste materials decays rapidly, and they present no accumulating or long-term burden on future generations. They would not need guaranteed isolation from the environment for very long timespans. In addition to these favourable results, fusion produces no climate-changing or atmosphere-polluting emissions.
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http://www.fusion.org.uk/focus/

So there really would be little to worry about.
 
The Mullinator said:
Actually very little will happen. I mean this describes the worst case scenerios:

http://www.fusion.org.uk/focus/

So there really would be little to worry about.
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Ahhh...but in order to produce fusion you need fission. So if the reactor has a problem, what could possibly happen is that the temprature goes down, and then you have fission instead of fusion for a very short time. So that could produce some radiation but not alot....but I agree it's very safe.
 
This is totally safe. As we all know, the Chinese (imbued with the magical powers of Communism) are invincible, so if this thing goes critical, it's all good.
 
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