In Shanghai, an experimental nuclear fusion power plant called HH70 has just set a world record by achieving its first plasma, marking a significant milestone in the quest for clean energy. This groundbreaking device is the first fully high-temperature superconducting tokamak and was built in just two years, showcasing China’s engineering prowess. As countries race to harness nuclear fusion—the energy source that powers the sun—experts warn that China is poised to lead in this technology, potentially changing the future of energy forever.
An experimental Chinese nuclear fusion power plant known as “HH70” in Shanghai, East China, recently declared that it has broken a world record.
The device, which is said to be the first entirely high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tokamak in history, successfully produced its initial plasma in mid-June reports the South China Morning Post.
It is no little accomplishment in the realm of nuclear fusion. It’s also wonderful news in a world where everyone is looking for cheap, clean, and endless energy. After all, there’s a good reason why nuclear fusion is regarded as the clean energy industry’s “holy grail.”
The Shanghai-based fusion energy company Energy Singularity, the device’s developer, claims that the HH70 also set a record for the fastest development and construction of a superconducting tokamak device.
Guo Houyang, co-founder and chief technology officer of Energy Singularity, stated in a recent interview with the state-run China Global Television Network (CGTN) that the HH70 is smaller, less expensive to produce, and was completed in just two years.
China’s strong engineering capabilities and booming industrial chain have played a major role in this accomplishment. Since its founding in 2011, Shanghai Superconductor, a domestic firm, has grown into a key global producer of HTS tapes, which are employed in the magnetic system of the HH70.
Although the HH70’s accomplishment won’t immediately lead to the successful commercial generation of fusion electricity, the surrounding industry is already getting ready for the next clean energy competition.
However, the person who creates the technology and the person who wins the race don’t often work together. In the US, Tesla debuted the first electric car in history in 2008. However, China currently undoubtedly controls the EV market.
HH70 was the first tokamak to generate a plasma, but there are already several commercial businesses worldwide striving to develop HTS technology for fusion, according to Yasmin Andrew, a researcher in the physics department at Imperial College London.
Even though fusion technology is still in its infancy, efforts to provide carbon-free energy comparable to that produced by the sun have progressively turned into engineering projects.
The supply chain and technological progress are crucial as fusion technology develops, according to Dennis Whyte, a former head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Plasma Science and Fusion Centre, who spoke with the Post.
“It is no longer just studied for science’s sake but is pivoting towards implementation as a new energy source,” he said.
In an interview with Reuters in March, Andrew Holland, the CEO of the Fusion Industry Association (FIA), a non-profit organization with headquarters in Washington, expressed concern that fusion might follow the solar industry’s lead, wherein the US developed most of the technology but China eventually took over manufacturing.
“It’s very clear that China has ambitions to do the same thing, both in the supply chain and in the developers,” he said. “It’s time for the US to respond to this challenge.”
This is not an idle caution. Even if Chinese laboratories did not develop the technology for industries like photovoltaics and electric vehicles, Chinese manufacturers have continuously increased the competitiveness of their products relative to their Western competitors.
The creator of a Chinese fusion start-up mirrored Holland’s suggestion.
He concurred that it was “very likely” and asserted that China is far ahead of other nations in terms of incorporating technological advancements into practical uses.
Many believe that nuclear fusion is the best way to meet the world’s energy demands. Nuclear fusion unites atoms to release significant amounts of energy without producing long-lasting radioactive waste, whereas nuclear fission breaks atoms, such as uranium, apart to generate energy (the technique now employed in nuclear power plants globally).
Fusion is frequently referred to as an “artificial sun” because it is the same process that has kept the sun blazing for the previous five billion years.
However, for fusion to occur, hydrogen atoms need to be confined for a sufficient amount of time and heated to temperatures above 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit). This will allow them to fuse into heavier atoms.
Previously regarded as the domain of science fiction, private enterprises, and research institutions worldwide have been endeavoring in recent times to actualize nuclear fusion.
The majority of efforts have been directed at “magnetic confinement” technology, which makes use of a massive doughnut-shaped reactor known as a tokamak, which was created by Soviet researchers in the 1950s to heat and compress plasma, a hot, charged gas.
The HH70 is not, technically speaking, the first or most potent of its kind. In 2013, Tokamak Energy—a 2009-founded spin-off of the UK Atomic Energy Authority—published a study on a comparable high-temperature superconductor device.
Furthermore, the HH70’s magnetic field—a crucial component of a fusion device—is only 0.6 teslas, far weaker than that of a recent rival constructed by a team at MIT, which surpassed 20 teslas.
This result is a major milestone in answering the question of feasibility of [high-temperature superconducting’s] use.
Yasmin Andrew
However, because it offers a crucial proof of principle for upcoming tokamak designs, Andrew from Imperial College London called the accomplishment “a big milestone for the field.”
“The application of HTS for tokamaks is an active area of global investigation, so this result is a major milestone in answering the question of feasibility of its use,” she said.
Strong fields are produced by superconducting magnets in magnetic confinement fusion technology. Andrew claims that HTS can access stronger magnetic fields than low-temperature superconductors, which could result in smaller machines that can be built more quickly and affordably.
Low-temperature superconductors have been employed up to this point in large-scale projects like the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a massive project in France that involves 35 countries building the largest tokamak ever. But these require an expensive, labor-intensive mechanism to cool the magnets.
But during the last ten years, HTS materials have started to leave the lab and reach downstream clients in reliable quality and quantity, which has coincided with the recent, active trend of private fusion firm establishment.
According to Andrew, “China is a key player in this emerging market,” and businesses in the US, China, and the EU are currently leading the high-temperature superconducting sector.
Researchers discovered that a family of HTS materials known as rare earth barium copper oxide, or REBCO, could carry extremely high current densities at temperatures as high as 20 Kelvin in the 1980s. However, due to their brittle nature, it took nearly three decades for these materials to be used to create wires.
The first laboratory in China to create a wire 100 meters (328 ft) long from the material was at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2011. To facilitate the practical implementation of this scientific achievement, the Shanghai Superconductor was founded in the same year.
On its website, the company states that it is currently among the six global producers capable of mass-producing HTS tapes longer than 100 km (62 miles) annually and that major fusion power developers in China and other countries purchase its goods.
In 2021, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), an American start-up created in Cambridge in 2018 and spun out of MIT, successfully developed the world’s first nuclear fusion-ready magnet with a 20-tesla magnetic field in cooperation with MIT.
One of the three tape suppliers responsible for the accomplishment was Shanghai Superconductor, and its magnet is composed of high-temperature superconducting material.
Whyte of MIT stated, “China has done well in establishing the foundations for fusion technology supplies in general, with companies like Shanghai Superconductor,” while he also pointed out that the US, Japan, and South Korea were strong competitors.
China’s efforts to achieve commercial fusion energy are accelerating due to the country’s increasingly developed industrial chain.
The northwest Chinese region of Shaanxi hosted the founding of Startorus Fusion in October 2021. Founder Chen Rui emphasized how fusion technology is now more widely available commercially due to the expansion of upstream suppliers.
“The birth of new materials like HTS allows us to design a relatively compact device in two or three years to prove the feasibility of fusion at a much cheaper cost, such as less than 1 billion yuan [US$137 million].”
To create fusion energy, Energy Singularity, which was established the same year as Startorus Fusion, claims to be utilizing “recent breakthroughs of and strong synergy among HTS magnets, advanced tokamak physics, and AI technologies.”
This phenomenon is not exclusive to China. The FIA claims that since 2018, significant sums of money have been invested in this sector, and the number of fusion firms has increased dramatically, particularly since 2020.
Major nations are raising the stakes by investing in and supporting nuclear fusion, an energy technology that The Diplomat referred to as “the next frontier in both climate change and great power competition” in a June piece.
Lu Tiezhong, the chairman of China National Nuclear Power, declared in September that “our country and we are working towards this goal” will produce the first power produced by controlled nuclear fusion.
Beijing declared in December the establishment of China Fusion Energy, a new state-owned enterprise tasked with combining national resources to develop a nuclear fusion reactor.
China wants to have the technology in widespread commercial use by 2050 and to construct an industrial prototype fusion reactor by 2035.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) awarded contracts totaling £11.6 million (US$12.7 million) to nine organizations in December to develop cutting-edge fusion energy technologies.
Additionally, former US climate envoy John Kerry launched an international cooperation plan on fusion including 35 country partners at the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop28). Subsequently, US President Joe Biden signed a funding measure in March that included $790 million for fusion science initiatives through 2024.
Chen of Startorus Fusion asserts that China has the upper hand in the engineering application of nuclear fusion technology, notwithstanding the efforts of other nations.
He claimed that China benefits from its extensive workforce, experience in large-scale manufacturing, policy assistance, and the integrity of its supply chain.
Regarding the supply chain, for instance, China’s production of high-temperature superconducting materials has advanced significantly due to its sizable domestic market and manufacturing base. Providers may still be able to lower costs and enhance performance, which is essential for the magnet system in tokamak devices.
In the meantime, China has amassed a sizable talent pool of exceptional fusion engineers via its more than 20 years of involvement in the French ITER project.
Chen emphasized that even with these favorable circumstances, China is not certain to rule the world’s fusion market.
“International cooperation, technological innovation, and sustainable development strategies will be the key factors determining the future landscape of the fusion industry,” Chen said.
Last month, GreatGameInternational reported that the Wyoming Energy Authority awarded BWX Technologies Inc. a multimillion-dollar contract to develop small nuclear reactors to address power grid issues in the Powder River Basin.
