In Marseille, France, and the United Kingdom, there are already plans to start a similar research.
China is one of, if not the greatest, power in the world. We are used to seeing how it builds hospitals, schools or skyscrapers in a week. Some of us even remember how in the Beijing Olympics they assured that they could control the weather, dissipating clouds or, on the contrary, concentrating them to make it rain. That's China, a lot of money, a lot of people, a lot of motivation and a lot of faith.
That's why we are all less surprised when we hear that China has succeeded in making its "artificial sun" work. Yes, their "artificial sun". In fact, more than one believed that the Twitter videos of a new sun rising in the sky were real.
But no, it is true that China has managed to make its project work, but it is not a fireball that will fly like a drone through the air, but a nuclear reactor that, for our sake, must be well gripped to the ground. Called EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak), this "artificial sun" has multiplied by five the temperature of the sun, for more than 17 minutes, with 70 million degrees. As reported by the Independent, echoing communications from the Xinhua News Agency, the main objective of this project is to produce almost unlimited clean energy. The basic idea is simple: to emulate the reactions that occur naturally inside the stars.
The project, which is already approaching $1 billion in investment and will continue experimenting until June, is based on a nuclear fusion reactor. Although more dangerous than renewable energies, nuclear fusion is for many the ultimate improvement on the unrivaled nuclear energy of the power plants we already know. However, we should speak of fission when we speak of fusion here.
Fusion reactors do not separate but fuse atomic nuclei, creating a massive amount of energy that, after more years of research, could be converted into electricity. Unlike fission, it does not generate hazardous waste and does not require fossil fuels. Also, they say, there is much less risk of environmental disaster.
In Marseille, France, and the United Kingdom, there are already plans to start a similar research project in what, for now, is the closest we are to achieving the technology that will allow us to create a massive amount of energy in a clean and sustainable way. For example, the UK's STEP Project aims to power homes with this technology by 2040.
Away from any scientific evidence, we can not help but remember as many on networks that this was neither more nor less the project of the recovered Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2 (2004). Recall that Spider-Man had to sink this nuclear sun into the water to stop an explosion that would have wiped out New York. If any of the Chinese scientists get mechanical arms, please let them know.