Beijing, Jul 1: China is building a small fusion reactor to experiment in the production of clean energy, said the Xinhua news agency quoting a leading Chinese scientist on Friday.  EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) is the name of the project, scheduled for completion by the end of the year at a cost of nearly 25 million US dollars. 

China has also been taking part in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project since 2003.  The countries in this project (European Union, USA, Japan, China, Russia and South Korea) agreed recently to build their first reactor at Caradache, in Southern France.  The Chinese Academy of Sciences is developing the EAST prototype with its own technology and resources, as the country is short on energy and research in that field is of utmost priority.

The scientists hope that the EAST could operate at over 100 million Celsius degrees and produce electricity in a consecutive 1,000 seconds, which will be a world record.  Meanwhile, ITER will not be ready until the year 2016.

Fusion reactors will try to imitate what happens at the center of the sun, where enormous high pressure and temperature push hydrogen atoms together to form helium atoms and liberate energy.  The difference with fission reactors is that almost no waste is produced in the process and risks of contamination for the environment are reduced to a minimum.