For now, I'll believe it when I see it. But the scientists seem to have convinced the people with the money it is doable.
From Asia Times, November 16:
A physicist who helped design China’s first hydrogen bomb in the 1960s now leads a fusion-fission power project
Southeastern China’s Jiangxi province is going to build a fusion-fission power plant for more than 20 billion yuan (US$2.7 billion), with a target of continuously generating 100 megawatts (MW) of electricity.
Jiangxi Electronic Group, a state-owned enterprise, said in a statement on Tuesday that Lianovation Superconductor and CNNC Fusion (Chengdu) Design and Research Institute signed a cooperation framework agreement on November 12 to jointly build a fusion-fission reactor in the province.
Lianovation Superconductor is a unit of the Jiangxi Electronic Group. CNNC refers to the China National Nuclear Corp, also a state-owned-enterprise.
Chinese media said the fusion-fission reactor will be built in Jiangxi, instead of in a fusion energy hub such as Chengdu or Hefei, because Lianovation Superconductor is located in the province, which is famous for its copper resources.
Copper is a key metal for making superconductor materials, such as yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO), that are used to make coils of magnets in reactors. Superconducting materials create no resistance for electric current to pass through at an absolute zero temperature (minus 273.15 degrees celsius).
According to Lianovation Superconductor’s website, the company is developing high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets that can operate at 20 degrees Kelvin (minus 253.15 degrees celsius).
Technology experts say HTS magnets will be commonly used in fusion reactors in future.
“The implementation of the project will be of great national strategic significance and is also a key measure to win the global future energy competition,” said the Jiangxi Electronic Group.
“The success of future projects will fundamentally solve the core problem of clean energy supply for the country, and will give birth to a new strategic emerging industry with epoch-making significance.”
The company did not provide a timetable or investment details for the project but it said it will target to achieve a Q value of more than 30 in this project. Presumably this value of Q applies to the fusion reactor part, which supplies neutrons to the fission process in the combined fusion-fission device.
The Q value, or the fusion energy gain factor, refers to the ratio of thermal power output to input in a fusion reaction. If Q equals to one, the reactor achieves plasma energy breakeven.
For example, if Q is more than 10, an injection of 50 megawatts of heating power into the burning plasma will produce a fusion output of at least 500 megawatts.
Last December, the US Department of Energy (DOE) and its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) for the first time achieved a net gain of energy using laser fusion, by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to a target to produce 3.15 MJ of fusion of energy output....
....MUCH MORE
