The 21st International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Fusion Energy Conference opened in Chengdu, Sichuan Province yesterday.

 

Being hosted by a developing country for the first time, the six-day event draws over 800 scientists from around the world.  

 

"China was selected to host the conference because its nuclear research institutes have achieved some outstanding experimental results in the field of controlled nuclear fusion," said Pan Chuanhong, director of the Southwestern Institute of Physics (SWIP). 

 

Controlled nuclear fusion replicates the energy generation process of the sun and is nicknamed "artificial sun." 

 

China started research into the "artificial sun" in 1965 and the Chengdu-based SWIP, the country's largest institute specializing in controlled nuclear fusion and plasma physics studies, has since built three nuclear fusion research devices. 

 

"Deuterium and tritium extracted from one liter of sea water would produce energy equivalent to 300 liters of gasoline after nuclear fusion," said Zhou Caipin, deputy director of SWIP's center for fusion science. "Its unlimited energy will solve the dearth of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and it is much cleaner than fission."

 

Kang Rixin, general manager of China National Nuclear Corporation, said China's experimental fast nuclear reactor would go on trial in May 2010. The reactor is expected to burn 60-70 percent of its uranium fuel while a conventional system uses only 0.7 percent of the uranium it's fed.

 

China began researching fast nuclear reactor technology in 1995 and invested 1.4 billion yuan (US$177 million) in the construction of the experimental reactor. 

 

(Xinhua News Agency October 17, 2006)