Chinese cities vie to harness the energy that powers the sun

At least three Chinese cities are vying to host the world’s first experimental nuclear fusion power station after the country’s government threw its weight behind the ambitious project this month.

Chinese scientists have been working on the conceptual design of the project, which offers the prospect of an almost unlimited supply of energy, since at least 2013, but the central government’s imprimatur has now taken it on to the next stage – drawing up the engineering blueprints.

Shanghai, mainland China’s financial hub, has been joined by Hefei, the capital of Anhui province, and Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, in the race to win the lucrative project, which, according to some estimates, could cost more than 100 billion yuan (US$15.2 billion).

With completion scheduled for 2035, the reactor would heat hydrogen gas to a temperature 10 times as hot as the core of the sun. At such temperatures, atoms of deuterium and tritium, two isotopes of hydrogen, merge to form helium. A small bit of mass would be lost, creating a huge amount of energy.

Fusion, the same process that has kept the sun burning for the past 5 billion years, is regarded as the ultimate solution to humanity’s energy needs. Hydrogen is plentiful in Earth’s oceans, and, unlike today’s uranium-fuelled nuclear power plants, a fusion reactor would produce no radioactive waste.