Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, praised China’s success in harnessing the power of nuclear fusion in a tweet on Monday and said that China is “far more advanced than most people realize.” And just recently, China just claimed success in creating an artificial Sun. Let’s find out in today’s episode!

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According to Nikkei Asia, China has jumped out in front of the pack in filing patents for nuclear fusion technology, demonstrating its desire to master the field and seize the lead in the creation of an alternative to fossil fuels. China came out on top in a ranking of nuclear fusion patents created by the Tokyo-based research firm Astamuse, ahead of the US in second place, the UK in third, and Japan in fourth.

The research firm evaluated the 1,133 patent applications submitted between September 2011 and September 2022 to rank 30 nations and regions. The number of patents filed, the viability of each idea, and the remaining exclusivity period were among the factors used to determine each nation’s score.

In terms of the quantity of patents as well as businesses and academic institutions that have submitted patent applications in the field of nuclear fusion, China came out on top. China began to file more patents starting in 2015, moving the nation ahead of the US.

According to Chinese news site CGTN, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), often known as China’s “artificial sun,” broke its own record on Wednesday by operating a steady-state, high-confinement extended plasma operation for 403 seconds.

The reactor’s most recent run exceeded the previous record, which stood at 101 seconds and was attained in May 2021. The experiment, which was successfully performed after 120,000 failed efforts by the researchers, will be a crucial data point for the operation of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), of which China is also a member.

Since nuclear fusion does not produce radioactive material or carbon emissions as a byproduct, it is regarded as the ultimate energy source, even on Earth. Nuclear fusion is the source of the energy produced from the Sun.

When hydrogen atoms are heated to temperatures greater than 100 million degrees Celsius, the ensuing plasma produces the conditions necessary for the hydrogen atoms to combine and form helium, releasing enormous amounts of energy in the process.

The plasma can be kept from making contact with the reactor walls by placing powerful magnets in a specific tokamak device with a ring-like configuration. With this strategy, China had big aspirations and anticipated having a working tokamak by the year 2020.

Even while that has continued to be a pipe dream, Chinese experts have made some excellent advancements in this area. EAST achieved a record for operating at high plasma temperature for 1,056 seconds in a different experiment in January of last year.

The significance of the breakthrough rests in the fact that the reactor was run in high confinement mode, even though the run time of the reactor was shorter this time.

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