China’s top weapons scientist says nuclear fusion power is 6 years away
- Peng Xianjue unveils plans for combined fusion-fission reactor that could make China world’s first to achieve the elusive viable energy source
- No country has so far managed to build a facility that generates more power than it uses in the fission process
“Fusion ignition is the jewel in the crown of science and technology in today’s world,” said Peng Xianjue, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics, in an online meeting organised by Beijing-based think tank Techxcope on September 9.
“Being the world’s first to achieve energy-scale fusion energy release will lay the most important milestone in the road to fusion energy for human beings.”
Peng, 81, has developed some of China’s most advanced small nuclear warheads and served as a top adviser to the country’s nuclear weapons programme, according to openly available information.
The Z-pinch machine – which replicates the fusion reactions of a thermonuclear bomb through magnetic pressure created by an extremely strong electric pulse – is expected to be completed around 2025 in Chengdu the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan.
The machine will produce 50 million amperes of electricity – about twice as much as the record-holding Z pulsed power facility, a similar device at the Sandia National Laboratory in the US, Peng said.