Satellite images indicate China may be building the world’s largest and most advanced fusion reactor at a secret site.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/05/climate/china-nuclear-fusion/index.html?
Satellite images indicate China may be building the world’s largest and most advanced fusion reactor at a secret site.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/05/climate/china-nuclear-fusion/index.html?
33 Comments
Submission Statement
People often talk about the profound first-mover advantages that might come to a nation that first develops AGI, but what about the one who develops workable fusion power first?
We are already seeing the decay of the fossil fuel age, and all the economic and political structures that go with it. The creation of fusion power would speed that up. China seems to be in a [positive-feedback loop, where being the world’s biggest industrial and manufacturing power is making it the technological leader](https://www.high-capacity.com/p/chinas-overlapping-tech-industrial) too. A fusion power breakthrough might be a shot in the arm for that process.
This is paywalled…. Can OP provide some TLDR?
I would love to see this completed, I bet they’ll have an insane amount of surplus energy.
I wonder if they could power most of SEA with that thing running full throttle.
A chinese led world order sounds nice
No war/ clean energy/ high education
Photos of the location are posted on Reddit
“secret site”
You can achieve a lot when you’re not overly concerned about safety
/S
Secret site, either the Chinese don’t know what secret means or they can’t keep a secret. I guess either way they don’t know what secret means.
Its like watching a game of command a conquer generals play out in real life. The main difference is that you have the Chinese building up their tech tree with fusion and the US building the Russian tech tree of polluting power generators. Then you have the GLA taking pot shots that forces you to change strategy.
Further proof of how the USA is fucked. We are gonna get lapped by China for energy production while we fight for stupid bullshit.
America: the answer to this potential threat is to destroy the Department of Education so they don’t accidentally teach anybody physics.
China: building new fusion reactor prototypes, flying new 6th gen jet demonstrators, iterating naval ships at staggering rates, switching away from fossil fuels faster than anyone else
USA: dismantling our clean energy industry, pumping our money into a south african racist’s pockets, putting all our fighter projects on indefinite hold
Lol America’s such a shadow of its former self. It’s like China’s playing chess with us and we’ve just decided to masturbate under the table instead of moving our pieces
China is going to stomp the US in the coming years if things continue this way. Drill baby drill is going to leave us in the dark ages, while China rules the new economy.
Someome needs to take over with the US turning into an Idiocracy.
And then what is America doing? Oh…going back to fossil fuels? O-okay… 😒
It’s like someone said: Who cares what nation discovers the cure for cancer, because cure for cancer. Ditto for fusion.
Why would it be secret? It’s still 50+ years away from being a useful supply of energy! Oh yeah China!
We already can achieve fusion, the problem is the fast decay of the reactor walls.
No material can currently withstand the heat for long enough to be viable.
Now it makes sense! Because Chinese have been stealing tech from us!
If we dismantle the Department of Education first, nobody could steal the tech we don’t own.
Not exactly secret if we’re looking at satellite photos of it on a reddit thread…
When the United States builds power plants and announces, they’re opening years later it’s totally fine. But when China builds power plants, they’re building it in “secretly hidden labs that they don’t want the world to know about“
I think this mean that they think they’re close. To be first would have huge geopolitical implications, and they clearly want to be first. Meanwhile Trump is firing all the non christians in the government apparently. America is doomed.
How do satellite pictures show it’s ‘the most advanced’ fusion reactor?
Good! At least some countries still care about advancing in the energy field.
Meanwhile USA is regressing at all levels to the previous century
The U.S. could be doing the same thing if the country wasn’t run by and for oil companies.
Super-huge, expensive power plants aren’t really ideal for power distribution. Multiple plants with much smaller footprints would be better.
What’s the US up to right now?
Abolishing the department of education, demanding NASA remove women from its website, and appointing an anti-vaxxer with literal brain worms to head the National Institute of Health?
Shouldn’t have asked…
Eh, they are going to accidentally create a black hole on earth that will devour us all, aren’t they?
~We can’t just replace every power plant with a fusion reactor.~
That’s correct, but fusion could be used to upgrade current power plants in ways that we cannot and/or are economically infeasible today.
~Fusion generates thermal energy, which turns water into steam which charges the electrical turbine.~
So do coal plants, nukes and combined cycle gas turbine power plants. Fusion would eliminate the need to burn fossil fuels to power two of the three. It could be complimentary to the H2 tech we’re already developing and close the renewable energy loop in very short time, with the rotating assets still in place to ensure that the grid remains at least as robust as it is today. Really, really exciting stuff!
If you think the first to Fusion Power is lame, just read/watch The Expanse. Turning reaction mass (water) into energy is the biggest game changer humanity has ever known.
Remember when you could at least justify America in the America vs. China debate by calling China authoritarian?
Now they’re both authoritarian (the US rapidly becoming christo-fascist authoritarian).
One is rapidly improving the standard of living for its citizens, building high-speed rail that spans the entire (massive) nation, advancing nuclear fusion research, and growing its green energy capacity faster than the rest of the world combined…
The other is a hellscape where every day, its citizens spending power and ability to survive is further chipped away… They’re ceding power of their federal government to a 4Chan nazi billionaire… They’re trying to intimidate women, ethnic minorities, and LGBTQ people out of the workplace…
China has its flaws as a country but I do actually believe on the highest levels that advancement of the society is a major objective for It’s government. It doesn’t appear to reject technology and science but embrace it. This is something the West sorely lacks in my opinion.
Probably a massive construction money laundering scheme.