ANNUAL REVIEW 2021
Update on The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor by Michael Keane - principal, M. Keane Consulting The project is known as ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. I wrote a short article for last year’s Review – here’s another quick update.
A REMINDER ON THE ITER PROJECT This is an international project to prove that power from fusion - the same energy source that powers the Sun, will operate successfully on Earth. The ITER facility is being built by a scientific partnership that includes the European Union, China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States. ITER’s highly specialised components - many of which are unique - are being manufactured in industrial facilities all over the world and continue to be delivered to the site here in Provence, France. Once they reach the ITER worksite they’ll be assembled into the final machine. The cost of project construction will be in the range of €20 billion and is funded by all of the nations involved. Fusion energy is carbon-free, environmentally sustainable and much more powerful than fossil fuels. ITER’s fuel is recycled for re-use. Fusion produces no high-activity, long-lived radioactive waste. ITER uses two forms of hydrogen fuel: deuterium, which is easily extracted from seawater; and tritium, which is bred from lithium inside the fusion reactor. The supply of fusion fuel is abundant, to the point where it is practically unlimited.
The site mid-summer 2021.
SO WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE LAST YEAR? The site work has continued throughout the pandemic, due to rigorous controls for all personnel with testing and tracing early on. The pandemic had an impact on the project globally, with some of the partners, such as India, being particularly badly hit. Early this year some of the remote meetings had only half the usual number of people attending. We did have the advantage in that we were well-used to remote communications prior to the pandemic, however it was challenging at times. The large components, such as magnets
Vacuum Vessel sector & Toroidal Field Coil.
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(in the illustration we see the Toroidal Field Coils) and vacuum vessel sectors, continued to arrive and be assembled. Many of these were First-of-a-Kind, with 5 years or more of development, so each delivery was a milestone in demonstrating the engineering feasibility. These field coils are superconducting magnets, 18 in number, 17m. long and 350 tonnes each, which confine the plasma (at 150,000,000 degrees C.) in the centre of the plasma chamber. This assembly operation reminds me of a giant jig-saw puzzle. Overall, everyone on the project worked hard to keep things on track. The adventure continues…
Vacuum Vessel sector which forms the shape of the Tokamak.
