International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering mega project, which will be the world’s largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment. It is an experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor that is being built next to the Cadarache facility in Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, south of France. Fusion power has the potential to provide sufficient energy to satisfy mounting demand, and to do so sustainably, with a relatively small impact on the environment. ITER’s Director-General is Bernard Bigot.
The ITER’s mission is to demonstrate that nuclear fusion—the power source of the sun and stars—is technically feasible as a source of energy and prove that it can work without negative impact. The project aims to make the long-awaited transition from experimental studies of plasma physics to full-scale electricity-producing fusion power stations. ITER, with a doughnut-shaped “tokamak” reaction chamber able to contain 840 cubic meters of superheated hydrogen gas, or plasma, is the biggest attempt so far and is predicted to produce at least 500 megawatts of power from a 50 megawatt input. Project aims to momentarily produce ten times more thermal energy from fusion heating than is supplied by auxiliary heating (a Q value equals 10), thereby to demonstrate the principle of producing more energy from the fusion process than is used to initiate it, something that has not yet been achieved in any fusion reactor. It further aims to produce steady-state plasma with a Q value greater than 5. (Q = 1 is breakeven); to maintain a fusion pulse for up to 8 minutes; to ignite a “burning” (self-sustaining) plasma, i.e. ‘ignition’ see Lawson criterion; to develop technologies and processes needed for a fusion power station — including superconducting magnets and remote handling (maintenance by robot); to verify tritium breeding concepts and to refine neutron shield/heat conversion technology (most of the energy in the D+T fusion reaction is released in the form of fast neutrons).
The project is funded and run by seven member entities—the European Union, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, and the United States. The EU, as host party for the ITER complex, is contributing about 45 per cent of the cost, with the other six parties contributing approximately 9 per cent each.
The project officially started in 2006 with an estimated cost of €5 billion and construction of the ITER Tokamak complex started in 2013 with building costs escalating to over €15 billion as of June 2015. The facility is expected to finish its construction phase in 2019 and will start commissioning the reactor that same year and initiate plasma experiments in 2020 with full deuterium–tritium fusion experiments starting in 2027. If ITER becomes operational, it will become the largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment in use, surpassing the Joint European Torus. The first commercial demonstration fusion power station, named DEMO, is proposed to follow on from the ITER project.
Nuclear fusion has many potential attractions. Firstly, its hydrogen isotope fuels are relatively abundant – one of the necessary isotopes, deuterium, can be extracted from sea water, while the other fuel, tritium, would be bred from a lithium blanket using neutrons produced in the fusion reaction itself. Furthermore, a fusion reactor would produce virtually no CO2 or atmospheric pollutants, and its other radioactive waste products would be very short-lived compared to those produced by conventional nuclear reactors.
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor under Construction
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