“Fusion is going to require huge breakthroughs from scientists and engineers as well as a lot of financial backing from the government,” Song Yuntao, Deputy Director in charge of EAST, told the BBC. “It's a project which costs so much but personally I think it's going to be great for the sustainable development of mankind.” Song’s remarks downplay just how revolutionary practical fusion power could be for humanity. Unlike a fission reaction, in which atoms collide and release energy, fusion is the result of particles being forced together at extremely high temperatures until they fuse into a heavier nucleus.

Chinese Academy of Sciences China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak.

When that happens, there is an exponentially greater discharge of energy compared to both nuclear fission and the burning of a traditional fossil fuel or similar chemical reactions. More importantly, the system doesn’t produce byproducts that are harmful to the ozone layer and needs only a small amount material in its core to function. On top of that, the isotopes in question are far less dangerous than those necessary for nuclear fission and therefore less likely to create a widespread radiological incident if the reactor fails catastrophically. So, at least in theory, fusion has, since the 1920s, offered the promise of nearly limitless and exceptionally cheap energy that produces far less immediate pollution and leftover waste material than existing power generation methods. Unfortunately, for the reaction to work, the system needs to survive temperatures of hundreds of millions of degrees Fahrenheit, as well as the resulting pressures, and do for an extended period of time. First invented in the 1950s, ring-shaped tokamaks, such as EAST, use a powerful magnetic field to contain the reaction. The Chinese researchers told the BBC that they’ve been able to sustain a single reaction for more than 100 seconds, which, if true, would stand as a world record. The length of the reaction “gets longer every year,” the British news outlet reported, citing statements from officials at EAST. “Here [at EAST] they're already talking about goals which are 10 times as long, at temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius [180,000,032 degrees Fahrenheit].”

Chinese Academy of Sciences A view from inside the EAST fusion reactor.