With the race for the new green fuel source well under way, every country and automaker is trying to develop the answer for the future of mobility. It seems like the US and Europe are betting on electric and trying to improve batteries and Japan seems to be more focused on optimizing current engines and hydrogen, but China is going in a completely different direction and that is a space engine powered by plasma.
While some of their automakers are trying to (and succeeding, by the way) compete within the electric vehicle market, some are choosing to innovate and push the envelope even further by investigating how to make this substance work. Plasma, which is known as the “fourth state of matter,” is what the Sun is made up from and it is the most common matter in the universe. For those who missed that science class, when you pump enough energy into a gas, its atoms get stripped apart into free electrons and ions creating plasma.
Amongst everything else that makes this matter quite unique, the thing that might make it perfect as a potential energy source is its response to electric and magnetic fields, which is fast, powerful, and unlike anything else.
Why China believes plasma could be the answer for the energy source of the future
While our description may have made it seem like it only occurs in space, there is plenty of plasma here on earth, for example in lightning and in the northern lights, and even some types of fire contain it. While those are the positives, the negatives remain that it is quite powerful and hard to control, so using it in a targeted fashion is a very tall order that until now has been almost dismissed.
But Chinese researchers are not backing down, and they have now successfully tested a magnetoplasmadynamic thruster, MPD thruster for short, that that runs on plasma. This engine uses electromagnetic forces to push ionized particles (usually from gases like argon or xenon) out the back of a spacecraft at incredibly high speeds. This does not burn like traditional rocket fuel, instead it turns gas into plasma and hurls it out.
This is not the first time this tech has been tested, there have been prior attempts with MPD thrusters usually operating at just a few tens of kilowatts, but this new Chinese version operates at over 100 kilowatts. This new way of harnessing this technology could be the catalyst for longer missions in deep space and could put China on the map as the main space exploration leader.
The reason why this is so important, even if it seems unrelated to the clean energy movement, is because it sin an incredible technology leap, and because fuel for rockets and airplanes and cars is not that different when it comes to contamination. Plus, the current technology to launch rockets into space is not as optimized as it could be.
Rockets nowadays contain a massive fuel tanks that burns for a few minutes and then they coast into space, which can successfully get them off the ground with ease, but cannot help them travel distances through space. Plasma could solve this problem if properly harnessed and controlled.
Given that this type of energy comes form the Sun it is completely renewable and “free”, which means that it would have some of the same pros as solar, and it could signify the next giant leap in technology. But since the process the Chinese researchers are using is still so new and experimental, it could be years before it is available to use, so in the meantime, we might be slightly better off looking for less aggressive alternatives to gasoline.