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(chǎn)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(jīng)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(shè)備——或者至少提供了克服這一挑戰(zhàn)所需的線索。