ITER FUSION UNLIMITED ENERGY
ITER UNLIMITED ENERGY
Fusion, the nuclear reaction that powers the Sun and the stars, is a potential source of safe, non-carbon emitting and virtually limitless energy. Harnessing fusion's power is the goal of ITER, which has been designed as the key experimental step between today's fusion research machines and tomorrow's fusion power plants.
AMAZING MACHINE
One million components, ten million parts ... the ITER Tokamak will be the largest and most powerful fusion device in the world. Designed to produce 500 MW of fusion power for 50 MW of input heating power (a power amplification ratio of 10), it will take its place in history as the first fusion device to create net energy.
WHAT IS ITER?
ITER ("The Way" in Latin) is one of the most ambitious energy projects in the world today. In southern France, 35 nations* are collaborating to build the world's largest tokamak, a magnetic fusion device that has been designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy based on the same principle that powers our Sun and stars.
The experimental campaign that will be carried out at ITER is crucial to advancing fusion science and preparing the way for the fusion power plants of tomorrow.
ITER will be the first fusion device to produce net energy. ITER will be the first fusion device to maintain fusion for long periods of time. And ITER will be the first fusion device to test the integrated technologies, materials, and physics regimes necessary for the commercial production of fusion-based electricity.
In a nutshell ITER will be the largest Tokamak device to test magnetic confinement to produce fusion energy. It will count millions of components, operated by cutting-edge systems, so as to measure its performance, and draw lessons for a future commercial fusion power plant.
The world’s biggest experiment on the path to fusion energy. Europe is the host of the project which is currently under construction in Cadarache, south of France
ITER is a global scientific partnership of unprecedented scale bringing together half of the world’s population: China, Europe, Japan, India, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the United States.
Thousands of engineers and scientists have contributed to the design of ITER since the idea for an international joint experiment in fusion was first launched in 1985. The ITER Members—China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States—are now engaged in a 35-year collaboration to build and operate the ITER experimental device, and together bring fusion to the point where a demonstration fusion reactor can be unveiled.
Welcome to the ITER worksite. The platform measures 42 hectares and is one of the largest man-made levelled surfaces in the world. There are 39 buildings, facilities and power supplies which will be needed to operate the biggest fusion machine. More than 3000 people are contributing to ITER’s civil engineering works. There are major technical hurdles in a project where the manufacturing and construction are on the scale of shipbuilding but the parts need to fit with the precision of a fine watch.
“It’s a challenge,” said Dr. Bigot, who devotes much of his time to issues related to integrating parts from various countries. “We need to be very sensitive about quality.”
Even if the project proceeds smoothly, the goal of “first plasma,” using pure hydrogen that does not undergo fusion, would not be reached for another eight years. A so-called burning plasma, which contains a fraction of an ounce of fusible fuel in the form of two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium, and can be sustained for perhaps six or seven minutes and release large amounts of energy, would not be achieved until 2035 at the earliest.
That is a half century after the subject of cooperating on a fusion project came up at a meeting in Geneva between President Ronald Reagan and the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. A functional commercial fusion power plant would be even further down the road.
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"Fusion is very hard,” said Riccardo Betti, a researcher at the University of Rochester who has followed the ITER project for years. “Plasma is not your friend. It tries to do everything it can to really displease you.”
Fusion is also very expensive. ITER estimates the cost of design and construction at about 20 billion euros (currently about $22 billion). But the actual cost of components may be higher in some of the participating countries, like the United States, because of high labor costs. The eventual total United States contribution, which includes an enormous central electromagnet capable, it is said, of lifting an aircraft carrier, has been estimated at about $4 billion.
THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW: Its amazing what we don't know, but together with excellent engineers and brains we are gaining on the knowledge of the Universe.
THINGS YOU MAY WANT TO SAVE: The nuclear reactor you and your friends built in your basement? Crackerjacks or Pulitzer prize.
ZENTRAVELER SAYS: If we have success with the ITER project like landing on the moon... it would be a great asset for all of humanity.
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