中國可能很快就會啟動“人造太陽”聚變反應堆

中國可能很快就會啟動“人造太陽”聚變反應堆

In March, Chinese researchers predicted that the nation's HL-2M tokamak - a device designed to replicate nuclear fusion, the same reaction that powers the Sun - would be built before the end of 2019.

今年3月，中國研究人員預測，中國的HL-2M托卡馬克將在2019年底前建成。托卡馬克是一種旨在復制核聚變反應的裝置，與太陽的核聚變反應相同。

If scientists can figure out how to harness the power produced by nuclear fusion, it could provide a near-limitless source of clean energy.

如果科學家們能弄清楚如何利用核聚變產生的能量，就能提供近乎無限的清潔能源。

For decades, that's made fusion power a holy grail for energy researchers.

幾十年來，這使得聚變能成為能源研究人員的圣杯。

But the problem is that they've yet to figure out a cost-effective way to keep extremely hot plasma confined and stable long enough for fusion to take place.

但問題是，他們還沒有找到一種經濟有效的方法來保持極熱等離子體的限制和足夠長的穩(wěn)定時間來進行聚變反應。

China's HL-2M tokamak might be the device that's finally up to that challenge - or at least yields the clues needed to overcome it.

中國的HL-2M托卡馬克可能是最終能夠應對這一挑戰(zhàn)的設備——或者至少提供了克服這一挑戰(zhàn)所需的線索。