China’s Fusion Program Gets Funding for Its Next Step

April 15, 2019 (EIRNS)—China will start generating power with fusion in 2040, the Song Yuntao deputy director of the Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) said April 11, reported Reuters on April 12. While there are challenges, Song Yuntao said, and there are critics who say it can’t be done; while some technical challenges are immense, he is confident China will start generating power from an experimental reactor around 2040.

The IPP Song said, has been awarded 6 billion yuan ($893 million) for the next experimental tokamak, and new construction plans are underway. (That was the cost of Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak, or EAST, the world’s first superconducting tokamak.) “Because we have a lot of technology now, a lot of challenges in plasma physics have been overcome, and I think this will speed up the entire process,” stated Song.