In News
- Recently, South Korean scientists created an ‘artificial sun’ in pursuit of unlimited clean energy.
More about the news
- About:
- Scientists from Seoul National University and the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy have made a major breakthrough in their pursuit of clean nuclear energy by creating an ‘artificial sun’ at the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) reactor.
- Reportedly, the reactor reached temperatures upward of 100 million degree Celsius for 30 seconds.
- Comparatively, the core of the sun hits temperatures around 15 million degrees.
- Previous attempts:
- Chinese scientists have been working on developing smaller versions of the nuclear fusion reactor since 2006.
- Recently, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) fusion energy reactor created an artificial sun, reaching temperatures of 70 million degrees Celsius for 1,056 seconds, which is five times hotter than the sun.
- Chinese scientists have been working on developing smaller versions of the nuclear fusion reactor since 2006.
Significance
- Energy security
- By mimicking the natural reaction of the sun, scientists are hoping that the technology may help humanity harness vast amounts of energy and help battle the energy crisis.
- Cleaner energy:
- It is pertinent to note that nuclear fusion is considered the holy grail of energy and it is what powers our sun.
- It merges atomic nuclei to create massive amounts of energy, which is the opposite of the fission process used in atomic weapons and nuclear power plants, which splits them into fragments.
- The process requires no fossil fuels and leaves behind no hazardous waste materials, unlike the nuclear fission process that powers commercial nuclear energy production.
- Unlike fission, fusion emits no greenhouse gases.
- Less Disaster:
- Physicists also claim that there is far less risk of an environmental disaster.
Challenges
- Keeping the temperature over 100 million degrees.
- Operating at a stable level for a long time.
- Nuclear fusion remains a long way from being realised outside of a laboratory, despite decades of research into the technology.
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China’s artificial Sun-EAST
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Way Ahead
- Although these are significant developments, there is still a lot to go before the world is able to see a fully functioning artificial sun.
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Nuclear Fission |
Nuclear Fusion |
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