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BEIJING - Scientists on Thursday carried out China's first successful test of an experimentalfusion reactor, powered by the process that fuels the sun, a research institute spokeswomansaid.China, the United States and other governments are pursuing fusion research in hopes that itcould become a clean, potentially limitless energy source. Fusion produces little radioactivewaste, unlike fission, which powers conventional nuclear reactors.Beijing is eager for advances, both for national prestige and to reduce its soaring consumption of imported oil and dirty coal.The test by the government's Institute of Plasma Physics was carried out on a Tokamak fusiondevice in the eastern city of Hefei, said Cheng Yan, a spokeswoman at the institute.Cheng said the test was considered a success because the reactor produced plasma, a hot cloudof supercharged particles. She wouldn't give other details."This represents a step for humankind in the study of nuclear reaction," she said.U.S. and other scientists have been experimenting with fusion for decades but it has yet to bedeveloped into a viable energy alternative."I think it is a considerable step ahead for China," said Karl Heinz Finken, a senior scientist at theInstitute for Plasma Physics in Juelich, Germany, who had no role in the Chinese research.
 
"China is speeding up with the development of nuclear fusion and I think at the moment they aremaking considerable progress," he said.The Chinese facility is similar to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER,being built by a seven-nation consortium in Cadarache in southern France, according to statemedia. That reactor is due to be completed in 2015.China is a partner in the ITER reactor, along with the European Union, the United States, Japan,Russia, India and South Korea.A Tokamak reactor uses a doughnut-shaped magnetic field to contain the hot gas.Several countries have produced plasma using a Tokamak or similar device, said GabrielMarbach, deputy head of fusion research at the ITER facility. He said producing plasma was onlyone step toward the fusion that ITER aims to perform, and that the project could be helped bythe Chinese experiments."It was important for China to show that it is part of the club, and that adds value to itsparticipation in ITER," Marbach said."That is not to say that it is at the level of the Europeans or Americans," he said. However, headded, "We are rather admiring of the Chinese for conducting this test. It was conducted well,and they constructed (the machine) rather quickly."China is the world's No. 2 oil consumer and its No. 3 importer, consuming at least 3.5 millionbarrels of foreign oil per day last year.China plans to build dozens of nuclear power plants and is trying to promote use of cleaneralternative energy sources such as natural gas, wind power and methanol made from corn.
China sucessfully tests new thermonuclear fusion reactor 
Chinese scientists on Thursday successfully conducted their first test of an experimental thermonuclear fusion reactor, which replicates theenergy generating process of the sun.The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) fusionreactor, nicknamed "artificial sun", was tested at the Institute of PlasmaPhysics under the
Chinese Academy of Sciences
(CAS) in Hefei,capital city of east China's
Anhui
Province.
 
During the experiment, deuterium and tritium atoms were forcedtogether at a temperature of 100 million Celsius."At that temperature, the super heated plasma, which is neither a gas,a liquid nor a solid, should begin to give off its own energy," scientistsexplained.The first tests lasted nearly three seconds, and generated an electricalcurrent of 200 kiloamperes, Wan Yuanxi, general manager of EAST, toldXinhua.The experiments were continuing, he said.The device is planned to eventually create a plasma lasting 1,000consecutive seconds, the longest a fusion reactor has ever run.Wan said the deuterium extracted from one liter of seawater couldproduce energy equivalent to that generated by burning 300 liters of gasoline thanks to the fusion technology.If the thermonuclear fusion technology is commercialized, it mayprovide energy to mankind for more than 100 million years, Wan said.Li Jiangang, director of the Institute of Plasma Physics, said the resultsof the test met the expectations of scientists and signified a greatbreakthrough in the research of thermonuclear fusion."That means we lead all our competitors by at least a decade," said Li."The breakthrough will make it possible for mankind to harness a safe,clean and endless source of energy."EAST is an upgrade of China's first-generation Tokamak device and thefirst of its kind in operation in the world, said Chinese scientists.The Institute of Plasma Physics spent eight years and 200 million yuan(25 million U.S. dollars) on building the experimental reactor.The columniform device, made with special stainless steel, is about 12meters high and weighs 400 tons.Compared with similar devices in other countries, EAST cost the leastmoney and time to be built and is the first in operation, said Li.EAST would be the most advanced thermonuclear fusion reactor in theworld for the next ten years, said Dr. Gary Jackson from GeneralAtomics of the
United States
, who participated in the research.Unlike traditional nuclear fission reactors, which split atoms to createenergy and produce dangerous radioactive waste, EAST uses nuclearfusion to compress atoms at extremely high temperatures to generateenergy that would produce very little pollution.Scientists theorize that a fully functional fusion reactor would providecheaper, safer, cleaner and endless energy and reduce the world'sdependence on fossil fuels.EAST is part of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor(ITER), which is the largest international program dedicated toexperiments in thermonuclear fusion.In 2003, China joined the 4.6-billion-euro ITER which was originallyinitiated by the United States and
Russia
. The first operation of ITERmight be in 2016.
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