As you know, the Premier loves surprises...
Ut oh.
Hard to say with this first test. I'd almost bet the latter..but I'm afraid to.
I sure hope they don't find the guys with that Lambda Lambda Lambda tattoo burned on their forheads.
Sound off you FR Physics-enlightened ones, I will try to keep up widdya!
The Chinese can barely keep the lights on.
They won't be using nuclear fusion in the lifetime of anyone here unless we figure it out and they steal it.
Geeze, we need to get the global warming nuts on this as China's 'artificial sun' sounds as though it will contribute to more global warming. /sarc
I wonder what the civilizations on distant planets will think when the solar system erupts in a Chinese-induced supernova.
'Science Island'
Um, yeah, thats pretty close to Monster Island I think. Godzilla won't like that.
As you know, the Premier loves surprises...
I'd need some details into the type of fusion reactor this is. ITs the first of its kind?
What we need is a giant Air Conditioner!
chernobyl south. chinasyndrome. etc.
Has anyone told Al Gore? Global warming may actually become reality...
Doomsday machine? How so?
Good luck to the Chinese with this one.
A variety of systems including LHCD, ICRH, cryogenics, real-time control, water-cooled graphite limiters, ferretic liners and more than 30 diagnostic procedures, etc. were installed and operated in accommodation with long pulse operation requirements. Some of the most important results are briefly described as follows:
Significant progress in achieving high performance discharges under the quasi-steady-state condition in the HT-7 super-conducting Tokamak has been made. LHCD was used for plasma current sustainment and current density profile control. Improvement of plasma confinement was obtained by controlling the current density profile via off-axis LHCD. Experiments have demonstrated that IBW can control the electron pressure profile by localized electron heating via electron Landau damping and improve the plasma confinement. The features of IBW in controlling electron pressure profile can be integrated into LHCD plasmas to tailor the current density profile and avoid MHD instability. The operation mode utilizing simultaneous injection of LHW and IBW was optimized to achieve high performance plasma currents under a quasi-steady-state condition.
HT-7 has produced a variety of discharges with the normalized performance ©¬NH89 > 1~3 for the duration of several hundred energy confinement times. The normalized performance indicated by the product of ©¬NH89 >2 was achieved for > 220 ¥óE (see Fig.1). The fraction of a non-inductive plasma current was larger than 80% in such discharges with a considerable bootstrap current contribution.
The duration at the normalized performance of H89 >1.2 with ©¬N around unity has been extended to nearly 8 seconds, longer than 400¥óE. More than 90% of the plasma current was sustained by LHCD and bootstrap current. It was found that these discharges formed an internal transport barrier at the footprint of the minimum q of a negative shear configuration.
This status was kept in the time scale much longer than the energy confinement time and current diffusion time, implying the existence of a sustained current of steady-state high performance plasma.
The reproducible long pulse discharge with Te(0) ~ 0.4 keV and central electron density up to ~0.8*1019 m-3 has been obtained with a duration of > 60 seconds. The longest discharge was sustained 64 seconds by LHCD (see Fig.2). A new operation mode without central solenoid current has been demonstrated. In this case, the plasma current was really fully sustained by LHCD. This operation mode is important for simplification of the superconducting Tokamak design for a steady-state plasma discharge. The highest central electron temperature up to 4.5 keV at line-averaged density of 1.5*1019 m-3 has been obtained in plasma current ramp down experiments with LHCD and IBW heating.
In such discharges, strong peaked electron temperature profile was observed with improvement of the core plasma confinement. The MHD stabilization by LHW and IBW power modulation were successfully demonstrated.
The large-scale poloidal E*B time-varying flows were directly measured by using a forked Langmuir probe in the boundary plasma of the HT-7 Tokamak.
Low frequency (<10kHz) E*B flows were observed at the plasma edge, and they possess many characteristics of zonal flows, including a long poloidal wavelength and narrow radial extent. The cross-bicoherence of turbulent Reynolds stress indicates the existence of nonlinear three-wave coupling processes and the generation of low frequency E*B flows. The estimated flow-shearing rate is of the same order of magnitude as the turbulence decorrelation rate and may thus regulate the fluctuation level and thereby the turbulence-driven transport.
The component of Reynolds stress due to magnetic turbulence was first measured in the plasma edge region of the HT-7 superconducting Tokamak using an insertable magnetic probe. A radial gradient of magnetic Reynolds stress was observed close to the velocity shear layer location; however, in the new experiment described here, its contribution to driving the poloidal flows is small compared with the electrostatic component. A comparison of the profiles between the radial gradient of electrostatic Reynolds stress and the neoclassical damping of poloidal velocity gave the experimental evidence that the electrostatic turbulence-induced Reynolds stress might be the dominant mechanism to sustain the poloidal flow shear at plasma edge in a steady state."
More graphs and such at http://english.cas.ac.cn/Eng2003/page/SRA/A_4.htm
Romulan energy torpedoes anyone?
