Scientists edge closer to unleashing virtually unlimited power source — here's when it could finally go live
Located in Hefei, China, the "BEST" reactor uses a complex tokamak design. According to Sustainability Times' reporting on May 8, it utilizes a doughnut-shaped vessel that heats plasma to temperatures hotter than on the surface of the sun. It causes hydrogen isotopes to fuse and form helium, which releases massive amounts of energy.
Nuclear fusion is preferable to nuclear fission because it creates less radioactive waste. Radioactive waste must be carefully managed and often requires ample storage space. Eliminating the need for waste management streamlines energy production.
The process also releases minimal harmful gases into the atmosphere. Burning coal, natural gas, and oil creates dangerous carbon pollution. These heat the planet, destabilizing the climate, upsetting ecosystems, and furthering the spread of diseases.
While other fusion projects, such as China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak and the United States' Smallest Possible ARC prototype fusion machine, have made strides, the BEST reactor is a major breakthrough. The United States' SPARC reactor only promises to double its energy output; BEST aims to quintuple its output.
This high energy output could vastly improve the world's sustainability. With fusion, energy would be near-limitless and thus easily accessible and substantially more affordable. People could enjoy lower utility bills and consistent, reliable energy.
The innovative reactor would help slow down climate change and lead to a cleaner, cooler future, while helping people save money and access clean energy. Reducing energy pollution will benefit every human, reducing the health hazards of breathing polluted air or drinking contaminated water.
The BEST reactor is slated for delivery by November 2027, and it could be the beginning of an energy revolution. However, there are ways to embrace innovative clean energy solutions now.
If you want to lower your utility bills and reduce your home's pollution, you can install solar panels. They could bring the cost of home energy down to or near $0.
To get started, use EnergySage's free service that makes it easy to compare quotes from vetted local installers and save up to $10,000 on solar installations.
The environmental benefits of fusion combined with the financial savings and high energy output mean China's BEST reactor could change how we think about and use energy. It's an important leap forward in nuclear fusion technology and a step toward a healthier Earth.
Should we be harnessing the ocean to power our homes?
Absolutely
Leave it be
It depends
I'm not sure
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.
Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
29 minutes ago
- New York Times
China's Biotech Is Cheaper and Faster
Just outside of Shanghai, in the city of Wuxi, China is building its future of medicine — a booming biotechnology hub of factories and laboratories where global pharmaceutical companies can develop and manufacture drugs faster and cheaper than anywhere else. Amid the Trump administration's tariffs on China, I figured manufacturing hubs like this one would be wracked with anxiety. But when I visited Wuxi in April, government officials insisted that its research hub was flourishing. They were proud to tell me about their superstar labs and companies that are continuing to thrive. The fact that Chinese biotechnology stocks have surged over 60 percent since January seems to bolster this claim. The city's researchers certainly seemed positioned to be busy for decades. In its quest to dethrone American dominance in biotech, China isn't necessarily trying to beat America at its own game. While the U.S. biotech industry is known for incubating cutting-edge treatments and cures, China's approach to innovation is mostly focused on speeding up manufacturing and slashing costs. The idea isn't to advance, say, breakthroughs in the gene-editing technology CRISPR; it's to make the country's research, development, testing and production of drugs and medical products hyperefficient and cheaper. As a result, China's biotech sector can deliver drugs and other medical products to customers at much cheaper prices, including inexpensive generics. These may not be world-changing cures, but they are treatments that millions of people around the world rely on every day. And as China's reach expands, the world will soon have to reckon with a new leader in biotech and decide how it wants to respond. One such company that embodies the Chinese approach to biotech is Wuxi AppTec. It's a one-stop shop for pharmaceutical research and development, streamlining everything from early-stage drug discovery to young scientist recruitment and medication production. The company, whose clients have included Chinese firms like Innovent and Jiangsu Hengrui, as well as American and European drugmakers like Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, was involved in, by one estimate, a quarter of the drugs used in the United States, including blockbuster cancer drugs. Though the Chinese government bargains hard with both foreign and domestic pharmaceutical companies to provide products at the right price in exchange for market access, the low prices that Chinese consumers pay are ultimately the result of Chinese biotech companies' ability to test and manufacture drugs at a pace far faster than their American counterparts. So far, American biotech giants don't seem to mind the competition, since their own use of companies like Wuxi AppTec allows them to dedicate more of their money to breakthrough research. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Scientists make remarkable discovery after studying 'green roofs' on buildings: 'Can offer unexpected co-benefits'
Scientists make remarkable discovery after studying 'green roofs' on buildings: 'Can offer unexpected co-benefits' A Tongji University research project has provided evidence that green roofs can remove microplastics from rainwater, according to Anthropocene. The vegetative building toppers have long been used to help insulate structures, reducing heating and cooling costs. They can also reduce stormwater runoff. They consist of a waterproof membrane, soil, plants, and some other infrastructure needed to hold it all together. They also provide urban habitat for birds and insects, and can last twice as long as regular roofs, all according to the Government Accountability Office. A lab-scale mockup in Shanghai demonstrated the ability to filter out the tiny plastic polluters. The roof was able to collect 97.5% of ground rubber, polyurethane fibers, and other microplastics that were added to simulated rainfall, per the lab summary. "Our study highlights the powerful potential of urban green roofs to act as passive interceptors of atmospheric microplastics," research team member Shuiping Cheng, from Tongji University in Shanghai, said in Anthropocene. Microplastics are turning up all over the place, including in wild animal feces, the deep sea, and human blood, according to multiple reports. Washing a load of clothes sheds millions of microplastics, per PBS News. A researcher at the University of Bonn in Germany has developed a fish gill-inspired filter to capture most of them from the machines. The health impact of the prolific pollution is still being studied, but Harvard Medicine said that scientists are concerned about cancer and reproductive health risks, among other troubles. In Shanghai, vegetative roofs top only a "small fraction" of the sprawling city of more than 24 million people. Anthropocene reported that those green building surfaces can capture nearly 62 tons of microplastics annually. "These nature-based solutions can offer unexpected co-benefits in mitigating airborne pollution in densely built environments," Cheng said in the report. The GSA added that the natural roofs can also limit the impact of urban heat islands, negating "increased energy consumption, heat-related illness and death, and air pollution" from concrete- and asphalt-abundant cityscapes. NASA has reported that planet warming is contributing to increased heat wave risks that may make some places uninhabitable. Would you live in a home with a grass-covered roof? Sign me up Only if it looks cool Only if it saves me money No way Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. In the study, Cheng's team found that irregularly shaped microplastics were captured by the rooftop soils better than smoother ones that shed from stretch clothing. Other anomalies were also noted. "We were surprised to observe that fiber-shaped microplastics captured by the green roof system could become resuspended into the atmosphere under airflow disturbance," like windy conditions, Cheg said in the story. The soil could also eventually become "saturated" with the small particles. Fascinatingly, earthworms were noted as a possible solution to metabolize the plastics, all per Anthropocene. Eliminating plastic use is a way anyone can help. Ditching single-use plastic bottles, for example, can provide you with a better, planet-friendly water carrier and save you a couple of hundred dollars a year. On a larger scale, research from Shanghai is proving the value of greener building topsides. The team intends to help grow the concept. "A key next step is to validate these results under real-world conditions on full-scale green roofs. We are actively exploring opportunities to carry out such long-term field studies to better understand microplastic retention and release dynamics over time," Cheng said in the report. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the the daily Crossword
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Inside BYD's plan to rule the waves
Elon Musk had a problem. As Tesla struggled to ramp up sales in October 2022, it faced a critical shortage of ships to deliver its EVs. "There weren't enough boats, there weren't enough trains, there weren't enough car carriers," Musk told investors, after Tesla announced it had delivered tens of thousands of cars fewer than it made over the previous quarter. As Tesla struggled, its biggest Chinese rival devised a novel solution. BYD, which is on course to surpass Tesla this year as the world's top seller of EVs, decided in 2022 to build a fleet of seven giant ships, each capable of carrying thousands of cars. Unlike most of its Western rivals, which typically buy space on car carriers operated by shipping companies, BYD has cut out the intermediary as it doubles down on ambitious plans to sell half its cars outside China by 2030. Six of BYD's giant ships, which are emblazoned with the company's livery and a striking red and white color scheme, have entered service in the past year. Data obtained by Business Insider from ship tracking and maritime analytics provider MarineTraffic shows how the Chinese carmaker is using this fleet to drive an unprecedented international expansion, flooding ports in Europe, Brazil, and Mexico as it takes the fight to Tesla and overtakes legacy automakers. EVs on the high seas BYD's first ship set sail in January 2024, when the BYD Explorer No.1 — a 200-meter-long, 13-deck, roll-on roll-off behemoth — went into service. In July, the Zhengzhou, which can carry up to 7,000 vehicles, became the seventh vessel to join the fleet. The largest ship in BYD's armada, the Shenzhen, has a capacity of over 9,000 vehicles, making it one of the world's largest car-carrying vessels. The massive ships have been busy. After launching, Explorer No.1 immediately began a 41-day voyage to Europe, the first of three separate trips there in 2024. Explorer No.1 has also made three voyages to Brazil since May 2024. In May this year, it docked in the Brazilian port of Portocel in its second visit in four months, with two other BYD ships, the Hefei and the Shenzhen, also arriving in Brazil in April and May. All three arrived fully laden and left empty as BYD raced to deliver its vehicles to Brazil ahead of a planned EV tariff rise in July. The voyages to Europe and Brazil coincide with BYD's sales surging in both markets. BYD, which did not respond to a request for comment for this story, sold just 2,500 vehicles in Brazil in the first half of 2023. It's sold over 56,000 vehicles there so far this year, per data from Brazil's National Federation of Automotive Vehicle Distribution. That's more than Nissan, Renault, and Ford, and it has seen BYD take a dominant position in one of the world's fastest-growing EV markets. In Europe, BYD's sales in the first half of the year were more than 300% higher than over the same period in 2024. The Chinese carmaker sold more pure battery-electric vehicles than Musk's automaker in Europe for the first time in April, and its global EV sales have outpaced Tesla's for the past three quarters. Stian Omli, a senior vice president at logistics intelligence firm Esgian, told Business Insider that BYD was essentially operating a "shuttle service" between its production hubs in China and key ports in Europe and Brazil. BYD's strategy is shaking up the car shipping industry, which has been dominated historically by a handful of established shipping companies that usually plan and invest on cycles of a decade or longer. Companies like Norwegian logistics giant Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Japanese firm NYK Line sell space aboard their ships to multiple companies, then try to stop at as many ports as possible and pick up cargo for the return voyages. But Omli said BYD's strategy was to go direct, dump a massive number of EVs at one or two destination ports, and often return to China empty. "Just like they have changed the competitive landscape when it comes to cars, the Chinese are also changing the competitive landscape when it comes to the car carriers," Omli said. China's brutal EV market forces BYD to go global Stephen Dyer, managing director at auto consultancy AlixPartners, told Business Insider that the Chinese EV industry's drive to expand overseas is driven by a "never-ending" price war at home, as over 100 EV brands fight it out in the world's most brutally competitive car market. "If you can succeed outside China, you gain credibility with your core market consumers in China," said Dyer. BYD could do with a boost. In July, the automaker's sales fell for the first time this year, putting its target of selling 5.5 million cars in 2025 at risk. BYD's decision to operate its own ships had its roots in a post-COVID supply crunch between 2021 and 2023, when high demand combined with a shortage of specialised car carriers. This crunch sent the price of one car carrier for a yearlong charter soaring as high as $125,000 per day, far above the typical pre-COVID high of around $25,000, Omli said. This is what made Musk rage and prompted BYD to embark on its radical strategy just as it was beginning to enter international markets in earnest. BYD's setup allows the company to avoid being caught out if prices soar again, Omli said, and also gives it more flexibility to send its cars where and when it wants. Control over its supply chain is a key part of BYD's formula for building EVs quicker and cheaper than its rivals. The company manufactures almost all of its own parts. Executive vice president Stella Li previously said that the tires and windows of BYD's Dolphin hatchback were the only parts not made in-house. "Developing your own component suppliers gives BYD not only some cost leverage over other suppliers, but also the flexibility to do things much faster," Dyer said. "When you have your own fleet, it's the same idea. It allows you to do things quickly and flexibly. You can divert them to anywhere that you want to go, even part of the way on the voyage. You're assured of supply," he added. A costly gambit BYD is not the only Chinese EV company to dabble in deep-sea shipping. Rivals such as SAIC Motors have built even larger fleets, and Omli estimated the share of the global deep-sea car carrier fleet controlled by Chinese companies will rise from 10-15% to as much as 25% in the next few years. It's a hefty investment. Omli estimated that building the first four ships in its fleet cost BYD around $500 million, with such ships typically costing between $100 and $130 million each to build. BYD's fleet shows no signs of slowing down. The automaker's monthly vehicle exports in July were nearly three times higher than a year ago, per company figures, and its vessels have made six voyages to Europe so far this year. Recently, BYD's fleet has deployed its "shuttle service" strategy in Mexico. The 200-meter-long Changzhou became the first BYD vessel to arrive in the country in June, before criss-crossing the Pacific and returning with another load a month later. The Explorer No.1 has just made the same journey, docking at the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas on 14 August. BYD recently abandoned plans to build a factory in Mexico, but the company's EVs are still in high demand there. Executives say they expect sales to double this year. Data from Esgian shows that the four BYD vessels it tracks — The Explorer No.1, Shenzhen, Hefei, and Changzhou — have visited the Mexican ports of Mazatlan and Lararo Cardenas, along with Portocel, more than any other ports outside Asia this year. No risk, no reward While BYD's shipbuilding surge has given the company the flexibility to export its EVs at unprecedented volume, the strategy has risks. The company and its Chinese rivals have shipped so many vehicles to Europe over the past two years that it has put shipping infrastructure under pressure and turned some ports into giant parking lots. Germany-based auto analyst Matthias Schmidt told Business Insider that most of BYD's sales in Europe were to companies and dealerships, rather than consumers. Schmidt said he believed BYD's strategy was to flood the market through corporate channels and build enough momentum to become a recognisable brand for European consumers. The shipping supply crunch that pushed BYD to build its fleet has now mostly abated. A wave of car-carrying ships has been launched in the past two years, easing the shortage and bringing prices down to around $50,000 per day for one car carrier on a one-year charter, with Omli estimating they will probably fall to around $30,000. With shipping via external carriers a more affordable option, Schmidt said BYD now has to justify the massive costs of running its own fleet by exporting more vehicles. "That's probably partly behind the high number of vehicles coming to Europe right now. They need to ship those vessels relatively full to maximise utilisation," Schmidt added. Alexander Brown, a senior analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, said that "a lot has changed" since BYD went all in on its own ships three years ago. Since then, Western economies have raised trade barriers to protect their own auto industries from Chinese carmakers, and the Trump administration has set about reordering global trade with tariffs. With this protectionism in mind, BYD has another big investment: factories. It recently began production at its new factory in Brazil, on the site of a plant Ford closed in 2021 after years of poor sales and big losses, ending a century of Ford production in the country. The Detroit automaker also shut down multiple plants in Europe, and Chinese automakers are now filling that gap. BYD is building production sites for the European market in Hungary and Turkey. Brown added that, if BYD had known how much tariffs would rise after going all in on cargo ships, "they may have done things a little bit differently." Graphics by Jinpeng Li. Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
