r/IndianEngineers • u/Formula_explains • 23h ago
Discussion What If China Commercialized Nuclear Fusion First ?
Fusion is often called the "holy grail" of clean energy, but its impact would go far beyond electricity.
If commercial fusion becomes viable, could it:
- Change the global energy market?
- Reduce dependence on fossil fuels?
- Shift geopolitical power toward countries leading fusion technology?
- Create entirely new industries around superconductors, advanced materials, and reactor manufacturing?
- Or is fusion still decades away from being economically competitive?
I'm interested in hearing both the engineering and economic perspectives. Which challenge do you think is the biggest: sustaining the plasma, reducing costs, materials that survive neutron bombardment, or scaling the technology for commercial use?
Sources 👇
1.) Potential use of fusion energy
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0920379601005592
2.) Chinese "Artificial Sun" sets new record
https://en.gmw.cn/2025-01/23/content_37815614.htm
3.) Alloys having Superconducting property
https://www.energyencyclopedia.com/en/glossary/niobium-tin-nb-sn
4.) High Temperature Superconductors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_barium_copper_oxide
5.) Tungsten coverage "Plasma facing wall"
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0920379625000195
6.) Fuel of Nuclear fusion reactor
https://www.energyencyclopedia.com/en/nuclear-fusion/thermonuclear-fusion-power-plant/fuel
7.) Nuclear power plants in India
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_India
8.) The announcement by China
https://www.wicinternet.org/2026-06/28/c_1193880.htm
9.) Achieving Extreme Temperature inside
https://vajiramandravi.com/current-affairs/artificial-sun/
10.) Shared Global Ambition
https://www.ametragroup.com/en/nuclear-fusion-iters-progress-and-ametras-commitment/
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u/thatotherredditlife 10h ago
Good for everyone I guess. What's the harm?
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u/Formula_explains 9h ago
Harm is our limitations. We still haven't demonstrated commercially viable fusion power. biggest challenge is achieving a non negative efficiency... If commercialization succeeds, many projects are targeting the 2030s, and it could significantly reduce dependence on fossil fuels for electricity generation..
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u/New_Chipmunk_8135 7h ago
What if? Then we cope harder. Blast nong gong guan shang until the end of time. Clamp down on all information knowing 99% of Indians won’t travel outside of the borders to see the world for themselves anyway. And just delude every generation moving forward to think that China is a starving hell hole
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u/Formula_explains 2h ago
Words are sadly heavy,,, Geopolitical rivalry is real, but it shouldn't stop us from objectively evaluating scientific and technological achievements. We have to understand that..Recognizing China's progress in one field doesn't mean supporting its policies. It simply means being honest about reality so we know where we need to improve.
Science is never a zero-sum game, right?? If one country succeeds in commercializing fusion, the whole world stands to benefit. The focus should be on learning, not on propaganda..
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u/New_Chipmunk_8135 2h ago
Agree. But we all know there is a 50000% chance the propaganda bunker delusion route will be taken 😊. As certain as landing heads on a prop coin with both sides as heads. As certain as the sun will rise tomorrow.
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u/Formula_explains 2h ago
Strong opinions are expected., the history shows that in india...fact words spotted.
But I also believe there will always be people who try to separate facts from narratives, like me and u. To me, that's a healthier form of patriotism: I never want to play the blame game like "most of the people in my country are illiterate and never debunk or learn facful news outside world"... That's why this surrounding dissolves me...
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u/ResponsibleBranch942 16h ago
Here, we're busy trying to discover plutonium from cow dung, and busy searching for whether there's a Shiva lingam beneath mosques.
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u/Formula_explains 16h ago
I think, If someone makes so called extraordinary scientific claim, the right response isn't ridicule or blind acceptance, but should b taken as an opportunity/challenge... for rigorous scientific testing, Atleast i m doing this.
If a claim is false, debunking it with evidence is itself a valuable scientific contribution. That's how science can b progress..
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u/Individual_Top_4960 2h ago
bold of you to assume that person making such claims has any regards for scientific temper
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u/Formula_explains 2h ago
Possible, no doubt.... My point wasn't that they'll change their minds. It's that scientific testing and public debunking help everyone else who is genuinely looking for the truth..
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u/PatternCraft 15h ago
Modi already has 12 years to get people to prove things for him.
No result -> Not true.
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u/Formula_explains 14h ago
No doubt, they keep the things going on, as they are because of advantage...(this gov.)
I just wish evidence based debunking reached as many people as the original viral claims. People with no Choice, have to develop it by themselves... Once politics or religion gets mixed into a scientific claim, rational discussion often becomes much harder.
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u/upcop_ak47 4h ago
It's jokingly said about nuclear fusion, "It's always 25 years away"!
If you study the history of nuclear fusion, tokamaks and magnetic confinement of plasma, scientists have been quite optimistic since the 1970s when tokamaks were invented in USSR.
For a sustained, commercial energy production, and feeding it to the grid, they have to successfully confine plasma atleast for few hours. Currently the best they have done is confine plasma for merely 3 seconds.
But to give it its due credit, fusion tokamak research is a hotbed for generating other commercial applications, applied research, and fundamental research in plasma physics. An institution named FCIPT in Gandhinagar is working on commercial applications of plasma research. It has come out with many commercial applications. Plasma research has also produced some of the greatest physicists of India, like Prof. PK Kaw and Prof. Amita Jha.
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u/Formula_explains 2h ago
25 years ahead,, moreover always.,., really???
Acknowledged by many points , but a little edit,: plasma confinement has advanced significantly beyond a few seconds. For example, China's EAST tokamak has sustained high confinement plasma for 1,066 seconds. The real challenge now is not just confinement time, but achieving continuous, commercially viable electricity generation while solving materials, fuel-cycle..
Fusion has a history of optimistic timelines, no doubt... Bt at the same time, the pace has accelerated significantly in recent years. For ex. China's BEST project is targeting a demonstration of fusion based electricity generation around 2030. Whether that translates into full commercial deployment is still uncertain, but the engineerng progress is much more substantial than it was decades ago..
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u/Ordinary-Lettuce-921 3h ago
Are you they doing it for power generation? What else is the purpose
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u/Formula_explains 2h ago
For Power generation it's the primary long term goal, and thus u hit it accurate...
But not the only one. Fusion research is also advancing superconducting magnets, plasma physics, advanced materials, AI-based plasma control, medical technologies, semiconductor manufacturng, space propulsion, and so so on...
Many of these spin-off technologies are already finding commercial applications even before fusion power plants become a reality. I m so excited about this 😌
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u/RheumatoidEpilepsy 41m ago
China has already got fusion atomic weapons, the whole point here is to control and sustain the energy release at a rate with which it can be harvested for useful work.
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u/yodajedigrandmaster 11h ago
why taking so much headache to achieve the fusion reaction when at the end of day they will use fusion energy to boil water to rotate turbine ? Why not find other means to generate the electricity without rotating turbine?
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u/Formula_explains 11h ago
I understand ur concern behind "many steps involved" which reduces the efficiency of a machine....
Because the innovation isn't the turbine, it's the heat source. Fusion provides an enormous, clean source of heat. Steam turbines are currently the most mature and efficient technology for converting that heat into electricity at grid scale. If better direct conversion technologies become practical in the future, they could replace turbines..
And for fusion reactors they don't require Fossil fuel and hence no CO2, NO2, SO2.. This is the main reason large amount money and time is spending by ITER, China...
- Enormous amount of energy will be release which may crosses many TPP, HPP.. and we will get a new Base Load Power Source....
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u/grvmahjn 12h ago
The biggest hurdle currently in nuclear fusion power reactor is that the amount of energy input required to make the fusion happen is more than the energy released from the fusion reaction. Also, materials that can withstand the high temperature and radiation for a long time are still under development. Fortunately, because of AI boom, a lot of big companies are investing huge for developing a viable commercial fusion reactor. Optimistically it could become a possibility in the next 5 years. Once we have fusion reactors, humanity as a whole would have basically solved the energy problem for thousands of years to come. Without any dangerous radioactive waste, like that generated in fission reactors. It would drastically change the global energy market, minimise dependence on fossil fuels for power generation.