The Chinese artificiel sun Set on

Sky world news/A year ago, China completed construction of its experimental nuclear fusion reactor, the tokamak HL-2M.

Those responsible for the project have just announced that they have successfully commissioned it.

They hope to finally master a clean energy source. Nuclear fusion. Researchers see it as the ultimate solution to our energy problems.

Because producing energy by bringing atomic nuclei closer together - as the Sun naturally does - is done without greenhouse gas emissions, without the production of radioactive waste and with less risk of accidents.

China had announced it in 2019.

Its most efficient experimental nuclear fusion reactor would be operational in 2020. Mission accomplished a few days ago with the commissioning of the HL-2M tokamak.

It is affectionately known as the "artificial sun". Ultimately, its magnetic confinement chamber should indeed generate phenomenal heat of more than 200 million degrees Celsius.

This is more than ten times the temperature at the heart of our star.

One more stone to the Iter building But it is one of the conditions established by physicists to achieve their goal.

To allow nuclear fusion reactions, a tokamak must also ensure a sufficient particle density to produce the greatest number of collisions possible and a time of confinement of the energy long enough to ensure collisions at high speed.

The Chinese “artificial sun” should provide useful data for teams developing the Iter project for an international nuclear fusion reactor based in France. Launched in 2006, it brings together 35 countries and is expected to be completed by the end of 2025 - more than five years late.

For a total cost estimated at nearly 20 billion euros, more than three times the initial budget.

The assembly of the million parts constituting this gigantic artificial sun which targets 150 million degrees Celsius began last July, in Saint-Paul-lès-Durance (Bouches-du-Rhône).