High resolution image of the laser-ignited fusion research center in China, whilst under construction last July (Coordinates are 31°32’35.8″N 104°44’22.3″E) Mianyang, Sichuan (Source: Reddit)
Jonathan Tennenbaum reports for Asia Times…
Recently a flood of articles appeared in the press showing a US satellite photo of what was described as a huge laser facility under construction in southwestern China. Readers were given the impression that this was a newly-discovered secret project. The reality is rather different.
Schema of China’s SG-III laser system, the third largest in the world Image: Zheng Wanguo et al., Laser performance of the SG-III laser facility. (2016) / High Power Laser Science and Engineering / Creative Commons license CC-BY.
The three big players in laser fusion today are the US, France and China. China already operates the world’s third most powerful laser, the Shenguang-III, located near the “Science City” Mianyang in Sichuan Province. (The Chinese expression shénɡuānɡ (神光) translates as “divine light.”) Completed in 2015, Shenguang-III is hailed in China as one of the country’s greatest technological accomplishments.
Before Shenguang-III went on line, planning had already begun for a much larger laser system, Shenguang-IV, capable of reaching fusion ignition. This is doubtless the facility shown in the satellite photo. While up-to-date information on Shenguang-IV is hard to come by, Chinese sources had already reported that the project was under construction in Mianyang and was to be completed “sometime after 2020.” It would have up to 228 laser beams and a total pulse energy of between 1.5 and 2 megajoules.
Shenguang-IV would thereby rival the largest presently existing system, the US National Ignition Facility (NIF), and most likely be superior to it in important respects. Shenguang-IV can take advantage of technologies that were not available when NIF was built.
JT-12 hypersonic wind tunnel. Photo: Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Given that NIF is already a relatively old facility – construction began in 1997 and was completed in 2009, with no follow-on project – this would make China Number One in the world in terms of its capabilities for laser fusion.
One should not forget that Mianyang, where the Shenguang laser facilities are situated, is the leading center in China for research and development of nuclear weapons, directed energy weapons and other military-related advanced technologies. Nuclear weapons are produced there.
Among many other things, Mianyang is also the site of the hypersonic wind tunnel, JF-12, the most powerful in the world up to the inauguration of China’s JF-22 tunnel two years ago.
The Shenguang facilities belong to the legendary Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), formerly designated as the “Ninth Institute.” From its creation in 1958 it played a key role in China’s effort to develop nuclear weapons, in the context of the “two bombs, one satellite” (两弹一星) strategy.
Apart from being one of the most important pathways to fusion as a practical energy source, laser fusion has always had a strong military connection. Bombarding a particle of fusion fuel the size of a grain of sand with a gigantic pulse of laser energy triggers the laboratory-scale equivalent of a tiny hydrogen bomb explosion. Among other things, this allows bomb-relevant physics to be investigated in detail without violating the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which both the US and China have signed…
Continue this analysis at Asia Times
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