The most modern nuclear reactor (5 photos)
China has conducted the first successful tests of the experimental tokamak EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak), Xinhua reports. The installation was built in Hefei, Anhui Province, and belongs to the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The launched device is a modification of the HT-7 tokamak built in cooperation with Russia. Work on the construction of EAST began in 1998. Assembly of the reactor itself began in 2003 and was completed in March of this year.
Research work will be carried out at the tokamak as part of the international consortium ITER, created to develop controlled thermonuclear fusion technology to an economically viable level.
So far, tokamaks, the magnetic field of which is created using superconducting magnets, require more energy to hold the plasma bundle in their toroidal chamber than is released due to the fusion of nuclei.
The creation of commercially effective fusion reactors will make it possible to generate energy in a manner similar to what happens in stars. Fusion power plants are expected to significantly change the structure of global electricity production.
Tokamak is an acronym of Russian origin. It stands for "CURRENT, CAMERA, MAGNETIC COILS".
