China’s “Artificial Sun” Shatters Fusion Record With Over 17 Minutes of Plasma
China’s “Artificial Sun” Shatters Fusion Record With Over 17 Minutes of Plasma
this sounds like a weapon from Red Alert
Tesla's death ray concept was both scary and crazy awesome-looking, I'll give you that. I can understand why "shiny donut filled with PURE ENERGY" can be mistaken for a Tesla coil, and that it's been revealed Tesla was a Eugenicist rather than the perfect old-fashioned science hero of the Industrial Revolution, but fortunately that and the reputation of the danger of nuclear power are severely overstated.
A fusion torus, essentially, is a wine glass. The plasma is the wine. Sure, it contains ethyl alcohol which is flammable (chefs use it in "au Flambe" dishes") and so people assume that because alcohol burns when you light it on fire to cook fancy food, but if you drop a wine glass, what happens?
It shatters. Except, even better, this wine glass is made with safety glass so that when it shatters, cleanup won't mean sweeping up glass shards and treating cuts. What's a little spilled wine compared to having a house named Wormwood (Chernobyl) burn down? This isn't just a revolution in energy generation, it's a revolution in the safety of energy generation. Hundreds of thousands die every year, mining coal. Tens of thousands have died for oil. Even renewables, while mostly non-fatal, have a higher ratio of deaths per unit of electricity than the "worst" case scenario of a fusion torus. Nobody has died from the worst case failure of a fusion torus, and that worst case failure has happened countless times before we got a stable fusion reaction.
I understand the pessimism on a political level, but if we survive this the way we survived WWII, fusion will mean a cold war of Mutually-Assured Destruction will be unlikely because now the only reason to have nuclear reactors is to produce compounds needed for medical purposes, which means no more meltdowns (such reactors aren't for power generation and thus built to use its' nuclear material in a not-meltdown-able way) thanks to replacing them with fusion.
Now, I know you're thinking this could turn out to not be scalable or even too expensive to operate, like Concorde was to airplanes. Yes, that is a possibility. The good thing is, we've been holding back on redeveloping nuclear power plants because we wanted to at least hear "Oops, guess you were right, fusion is awesome but impractical" from the people trying to get it to work before we made any commitments.
Now we know it is possible. Now, there's no excuse to not upgrade our electrical grids and use other safe nuclear plants like Thorium reactors or 4th Generation reactors (meltdown-proof thanks to a mechanism which relies on gravity to cool down the fuel, not mechanical "failsafes") if fusion really is a pipe dream.
If you doubt that last one, imagine an electromagnet is holding a flange closed while the power plant is powered. The fuel is in a spherical shape, submerged in heavy water that boils from the radiation. Suddenly OH NO there's an earthquake and tsunami and now the power plant is completely unpowered.
The spherical fuel pods not only can power the plant's own systems, if that fails due to complete catastrophe, the flange that is on the bottom of the pipe at a 90-degree bend loses it's electromagnetic fastener... and the spheres all plop into an underground chamber filled with more than enough water to keep them cool and thus prevent them from, you know, literally melting their way towards the center of the earth.
It's not foolproof but unless the lead-lined cooling tank is breached, probability of meltdowns are outside the realm of reasonable doubt. Now think about what fusion offers. Not just "outside the realm of reasonable doubt", it offers no chance of a meltdown, ever.
This isn't a weapon. This is a tool that could have saved the Fallout universe (fusion-powered Corvega cars, but in that world America banned their export and also they exploded in mini-nuclear mushroom clouds when damaged, go figure) from weapons, and it can still help save ours from weapons. The worst this will do is make the use of renewables an undeniable way forward, the best could - if we're lucky - push us permanently into a post-scarcity society.
Smartphones and computers, like the fediverse's instances, still need electricity. Until now, most electricity has needed to be partly powered in blood. Let's change that.
Hell March Intensifies
We have one too, unless Trump defunded it
I've been super interested in it but Lockheed Martin has not been very vocal about their "compact fusion" project. I would not trust them to save the world at all. The race is on!
So what are the limitations of running the reactor for longer? Is it containing the plasma becoming infeasible due to heat or other constraints or does the reaction inside the plasma fizzle out?
I believe that the issue is that the plasma loses stability and the self-sustaining state is lost.
Think of it like a top that runs on fuel but needs outside intervention to get moving. As long as the top's rotation is stable and has fuel supplied, it can theoretically run forever, but if it loses stability and starts to wobble then it needs an immense outside intervention to retain stability or just tumble until it settles.
Madness sense, thanks!
What we need to do is find some way to make a giant fusion reactor and put it in the sky and get energy from it that way.
But that's just a pipe dream...
What we need is robust decentralized multimodal energy production fit for the local area where it is installed and contributing to a well maintained distributed grid with multiple redundancies and sufficient storage so that incidental costs are minimized and uptime is effectively 100%. Energy is a tool and its generation is a category of tools, whining about people developing a better screwdriver rather than only using hammers is counterproductive when we're trying to build a house for as many people as possible that doesn't fucking kill everyone.
Wasn't this the exact plan of Doc Ock from Spiderman 2?
Eh? Wasn't that the one where his tentacles had that AI, and the fusion power broke it's control chip so it f-ed with Doc Oc's head? That wasn't his plan, that was the plan derailing. The characters fixed (or tried to fix) it in one of the newer movies, the one that established the Sony Spider-Man stuff as canon to the MCU's multiverse.
Creating the fusion sun was Ocks plan. The tentacles he invent to help create the sun....it was their only purpose. So when the inhibitor chip broke, that ai leeched I to doc and he became obsessed with recreating the experiment.
Any announcements like this coming from China should be taken with a huge grain of salt the size of... China.
Yep. They‘re putting out what they call huge breakthroughs on a weekly basis for months and make headlines. By the time they have been put into perspective or straight out debunked and torn to shreds by the global scientific community, they already squeezed out another wild claim to overshadow criticism. Rinse and repeat. There is a reason the overwhelming majority of AI generated slob studies come from China. They want fast results and know the press won‘t really read them and instead just quote whatever they claim.
eh. they have been verifiably meeting their goals for a long time.
It’s wild that y’all feel so comfortable being so openly Sinophobic.
They put a lot of funding into scientific research, and surprise surprise they get results. Maybe we should emulate their success, instead of continuing to waste our budget on war.
Breaking records in fusion is the scientific equivalent of flexing in a mirror—EAST’s 17-minute plasma sprint is impressive, but let’s not confuse lab theatrics with grid-ready energy. Fusion’s PR circus loves dangling “unlimited clean energy” while glossing over the actual timeline: we’re still decades from net-positive output, assuming we don’t incinerate the budget first.
China’s state-backed “artificial sun” reeks of geopolitical posturing—ITER’s bloated corpse twitches in France, and suddenly EAST is the poster child? Upgrading microwave-like heating systems to “70,000 household ovens” sounds less like innovation and more like a kitchen appliance dystopia.
The real tragedy? Fusion research remains a closed-loop cult. Open-source this tech, or watch it rot in nationalist silos. Imagine crowdfunding a reactor on GitHub—now that’s a fusion milestone worth celebrating.
This is why it's always decades away. However, I doubt China is being as cavalier about it.
China’s approach is less cavalier and more calculated opportunism. They’re playing the long game, but let’s not pretend it’s altruistic. Fusion isn’t about saving the planet—it’s about energy dominance. If they crack it first, it won’t be a global breakthrough; it’ll be a geopolitical flex.
The graph you shared screams one thing: chronic underfunding. The “1978 level of effort” line is a funeral procession for innovation. Actual funding is a joke compared to the projections, and every year we delay, the gap widens.
Fusion will stay “decades away” as long as it’s locked behind bureaucratic walls and nationalist agendas. Open up the research, decentralize the effort, and maybe—just maybe—we’ll see progress before the sun burns out.
Valid point, but worth also mentioning an anecdote I read years ago (can't remember from whom, perhaps Kurzweil?): when they were told the Human Genome Project had mapped 1% they were excited, saying it "had nearly finished", and then had to keep justifying the statement by explaining the exponential nature of such work to the majority of people who couldn't view it in any way other than as measured linearly per-result. Supposedly the project was completed only a few years later.
The Human Genome Project anecdote is a great parallel, but here’s the catch: fusion isn’t just an exponential problem; it’s a political one. While the genome folks could pivot and iterate, fusion is shackled by nationalist chest-thumping and bloated bureaucracy.
The exponential curve you’re referencing? It’s flattened every time funding gets siphoned into PR stunts or geopolitical flexing. Crowdfunding might sound naive, but at least it would decentralize the process and cut through the red tape.
Fusion isn’t stuck because of science—it’s stuck because of people. Until we stop treating it like a Cold War relic and start treating it like open-source software, we’ll be stuck in this endless cycle of “almost there” milestones. Let’s break that loop.
watch it rot in nationalist silos
"ITER includes China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States. Members share costs and experimental results."
That's quite the wide "nationalist silos", no?
Look, I agree that more open = more better, but I think you made it sound a bit as if it's just France (implied) that's gaining from this, where it's really an international effort.
ITER isn’t “international” in any meaningful sense. It’s a bloated Frankenstein of geopolitical vanity projects, where nations bicker over scraps of influence while pretending to collaborate. Sharing costs? Sure, but they’re also sharing inefficiencies, delays, and mountains of red tape. France hosting isn’t just a coincidence—it’s a calculated power play.
Your defense of ITER as a global effort is laughable. Experimental results are locked behind bureaucratic walls, inaccessible to the very people who could accelerate progress. Fusion isn’t advancing; it’s stagnating under nationalist egos.
I wouldn't be surprised if it were capitalist motivation that is holding back the actual research. Those that fund it want to have exclusive rights to research akin to the nuclear rat race all over again. It would likely be a benefit to humanity if it were open-sourced but I'm sure that those countries/orgs that own these projects think otherwise.
It would likely be a benefit to humanity if it were open-sourced but I’m sure that those countries/orgs that own these projects think otherwise.
Let's be real here.
It would likely be a benefit to humanity if it were open-sourced but I’m sure that those countries/orgs that own these projects desire and work towards otherwise.
The capitalist chokehold on fusion research is the elephant in the reactor room. These projects aren’t about humanity’s progress—they’re about patent monopolies and geopolitical leverage. The nuclear arms race never ended; it just swapped warheads for energy grids.
Open-sourcing fusion tech isn’t just a moral imperative; it’s the only way to break this cycle of greed. If nations and corporations keep hoarding breakthroughs, we’ll end up with a dystopia where energy is another tool of oppression.
Crowdfunding a reactor on GitHub might sound absurd, but it’s more realistic than trusting megacorporations or governments to prioritize global welfare over profit margins. Fusion belongs to everyone, or it belongs to no one.
Impressive. :)
I'm tempted, but won't try to guess how operation endurances will progress - it would be an poorly informed guess by a rando. Better to wait what they write about it in journals.
take all announcements by china with a grain of salt
PURASUMA!
Not a word about how much energy went into the process and how much was harvested…
I can create plasma using a candle and a microwave.
Not a word about how much energy went into the process and how much was harvested…
A 17 minute runtime in a Tokamak an incremental step on the path to success. You're in the kitchen looking over the shoulder of the chef saying the steak he's just put in the pan isn't cooked enough yet. He knows, but you can't have the steak on your plate cooked to perfection until he does this current step he's on.
I can create plasma using a candle and a microwave.
In 1964 you could build an honest to goodness fusion reactor copying the Farnsworth Fusor, yet that would never be on a path to a sustained fusion reaction with a net energy gain. The work in the article is.
Producing energy is not the goal of this facility which is why they don't report on it. The useful output is in refining control and heating methods so that when power producing facilities are built, they can operate continuously. On that front, 17 minutes is very impressive. At the speeds at which the particles in a fusion plasma move, that time frame is essentially an eternity.
Great. Now put a magnifying glass in front of it and point it at the white house