China's fusion energy dreams one step closer

One of the challenges facing the world's best engineers is creating a temperature high enough for fusion to take place. Extreme temperatures and pressure which mimic the core of the sun are required, and since this is impossible to recreate on Earth, temperatures must be raised to at least the realm of a mind-boggling 100 million degrees in order to create the conditions in which fusion can occur.

Toward the end of last year, in a world first, China managed this, with the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak, known as EAST.

This"artificial sun"achieved the required temperature by superheating plasma electrons to six times the heat of the sun, making EAST - if only for a split second - the hottest place in the solar system.

China's inclination toward nuclear-powered clean energy resources is growing rapidly. Liu Hua, of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, recently stated that China will begin construction of several new nuclear power plant projects this year (fission not fusion).

Currently, there are 45 operational reactors on the Chinese mainland. The combined total energy output of these stations is a whopping 46 gigawatts, which is the third-highest globally.

The government is not looking to stop there, however, with 11 more nuclear plants currently under construction in various parts of the mainland. The national plan is to have sufficient nuclear infrastructure in place so that by 2020, China has a capacity of 58 gigawatts.

If major breakthroughs in nuclear fusion continue to progress, however, these construction projects will be rendered futile. Under nuclear fusion, one helium isotope can produce up to six times more energy than a single atom of uranium, under currently possible nuclear fission technology. It is estimated by many experts that this breakthrough is highly likely to occur within the next 50 years, if not sooner.

However, other factors are at play, which may hinder the world's progress toward a solution for our universal energy problem. Global and political pressure could affect research, if proper safeguarding practices are not heeded. Incidents like the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, for example, are huge setbacks to the development of the nuclear industry. However, it is worth remembering that hydrogen fills our oceans in the form of water, and it is literally an inexhaustible energy source which would be more reliable and potent than current renewable options.

The days of coal are also more numbered than people think. The majority of coal comes from a geological time window period hundreds of millions of years ago, where bacteria which could decompose tree wood had not evolved yet, allowing coal to form. What little is left of our coal reserves is fast depleting too. Imagine if we had the magic ability to, in essence, turn water into petrol instead? This would be worth waiting for.