China’s fusion nuclear reactor will not crash power grid in world first: scientists
- ‘Heat sink’ filled with molten salt proposed by researchers to turn fusion energy into electricity without bringing power grid down
- The China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor, to be completed around 2035, aims for peak power output of 2 gigawatts
A research team in China said that they have designed the world’s first power plant that can turn fusion energy into electricity without bringing the power grid down.
But converting the heat into electricity is difficult because the reactor needs to take a 20-minute break every two hours, according to Xiang Kui, chief engineer of thermal systems with the China Energy Engineering Group Guangdong Electric Power Design Institute, in Guangzhou.
This frequent interruption could create pulse energy that “will cause huge damage to the power grid”, said Xiang and his colleagues in a paper published in domestic peer-reviewed journal Southern Energy Construction on Wednesday.
China plans to start generating commercial fusion power by around 2050, but the fusion power plant will need a unique design with a strong buffering zone to protect existing energy infrastructure from these deadly shocks, according to the researchers.
The CFETR is a tokamak device – built to harness the energy of fusion – that can produce an extremely powerful magnetic field to contain and control hydrogen gas 10 times hotter than the core of the sun.