It is scary that China is able to accomplish so muc and such a smaller budget. Interesting that the U.S. isn't listed as a country that has built and experimented with a Tokomak reactor. Also intersting that the most powerful particle accelerator ever proposed, the superconducting supercollider, was scrapped by a democrat congress because the money to build it and it's physical location was in Republican districts. Why does Washigton want to do everything it can to make the U.S. lose her lead in science and technology. It's like slow erosion that no one wants to do anything about until the levee finally breaks.
The US has several TOKOMAK reactors. There was one at UT in Austin when I went to school there in the 80's. I think what is different about this one is that the magnets used in the device are energized with superconducting wire. Therefore the device as a whole will use less energy.
Uuhh.., is this a rhetorical question?
If the Chinese can do something like this for a fraction of the cost in the U.S., it just might have something to do with the fact that they are not hampered by an EPA, OSHA, Federal Employment Standards, an "environmental wacko movement", obstinate labor Unions, and greedy subcontractors.
And they won't need all those silly safety devices, either!
....since that would make the Chinese experiement look like 30-yr catch-up mode.
The US sure has had and has tokamaks.
Uh, U.S. has build Tokamak reactors for a while now, I took my intro quantum physics class in the same building that house one of the U.S. Tokamak on the Washington University in St. Louis campus, walked by it everyday :).
Using super-conducting magnet is an evolutionary design improvement, hardly a break-through.
The thing is - the article's title is mis-leading, there is nothing particularly "first" about this, it's just part of on-going basic research in high energy physics, similar work is also being done in Europe, Japan, Russia, and North America.
To be fair, if you read the article, the Chinese scientist aren't claiming this as a significant first in anything either (except they are building it dirt cheap compare to building one in the U.S.), or that they have the whole fusion (e.g. artificial sun) thing figured out. They are only re-stating the same holy grail (unlimited clean and cheap energy from hydrogen) that everyone's been chasing for the last half century.
Oh yeah, it is part of project 863 general science and technology research. Which thus far hasn't produced anything terribly impressive - not unlike similar big govenrment funded money hole / big science project in the west.
http://www.863.org.cn/english/annual_report/annual_repor_2000/als2000_09.html