This Could Be The Future Of Energy Articles. Fossil fuel is already getting outdated and is in dire need of a replacement, which is where EAST comes in. EAST, which is short for Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak is a fusion reactor that was originally created in Hefei, China. Since its official launch, it’s been reported that the reactor has already been able to reach temperatures of up to six times hotter than the sun which already makes it an incredible construction to say the least.

The reason as to why the heating is so important is because it is the key to fusion reactors. If you didn’t know already, fusion reactors force lightweight atoms to combine which releases energy in the process. This energy is what we are using for ourselves, but it is no easy feat as this can easily backfire and become a nuke the size of a continent in a millisecond. The heating actually helps conduct the atoms better, forcing them to unite way faster and easier. The tricky part is the balancing of the head and the cold, which is why fusion reactors need constant attention from professionals in the field. This is why it was established that the ideal temperature would be around 100 million degrees Celsius, aka the 6 times hotter than our own Sun’s core as we mentioned previously.

The fusion reactor was able to generate power for a good ten seconds before it shut down which is already better than any other reactor out there. In order to properly work, EAST needed 10 Megawatts of power aka the same power level needed to maintain the energy inside of 1,640 American homes in a year. The team hopes to be able to use this experiment to furthermore improve ITER, or the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (the largest fusion reactor in the world).