ITER is an international tokamak (magnetic confinement fusion) experiment, planned to be built in France and designed to show the scientific and technological feasibility of a full-scale fusion power reactor. It builds upon research conducted on devices such as TFTR, JET, JT-60, and T-15, and will be considerably larger than any of them. The program is anticipated to last for 30 years - 10 years for construction, and 20 years of operation - and cost approximately €10 billion. After many years of deliberation, the participants announced in June, 2005 that ITER will be built in Cadarache, France.
The name stood for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, but is now no longer an acronym. The word 'iter' means 'the way' in Latin and so the name is now used as a reference to ITER being the way to harnessing nuclear fusion as a peaceful power source.
History
ITER began in 1985 as a collaboration between the then Soviet Union, the USA, European Union (through EURATOM) and Japan. Conceptual and engineering design phases led to an acceptable, detailed design in 2001, underpinned by $650 million worth of research and development by the "ITER Parties" to establish its practical feasibility. These (with the Russian Federation replacing the Soviet Union and with the USA opting out of the project between 1999 and 2003) have been since joined in negotiations on the future construction, operation and decommissioning of ITER by Canada (who terminated their participation at the end of 2003), the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Korea. India and Brazil are expected to join the collaboration shortly. The project is expected to cost about €10 billion over its thirty year life.
On June 28, 2005 it was officially announced that ITER will be built in the European Union, in Southern France. The negotiations that led to the decision ended in a compromise between the EU and Japan, in that Japan was promised 20 percent of the research staff on the French ___location of ITER as well as the head of the administrative body of ITER. In addition another research facility for the project will be built in Japan and the European Union has agreed to contribute about 50% of the costs of this institution [3].
ITER will run in parallel with a materials test facility, the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF), which will develop materials suitable for use in the extreme conditions that will be found in future fusion power plants. Both of these will be followed by a demonstration power plant, DEMO, which would generate electricity. A prototype plant to follow DEMO would be the first to produce commercial power.
Objectives
ITER has a number of specific objectives, all concerned with developing a viable fusion power reactor:
- To produce momentarily ten times more thermal energy from fusion heating than is supplied by auxiliary heating (a Q value of 10).
- To produce a steady-state plasma with a Q value of greater than 5.
- To maintain a fusion pulse for up to eight minutes.
- To ignite a 'burning' (self-sustaining) plasma.
- To develop technologies and processes needed for a fusion power plant - including superconducting magnets (pioneered on the Russian T-15) and remote handling (maintenance by robot).
- To verify tritium breeding concepts.
Location
The process of selecting a ___location for ITER was long and drawn out. The most likely sites were Cadarache in Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur, France and Rokkasho, Aomori, Japan. Additionally, Canada announced a bid for the site in Clarington in May 2001, but withdrew from the race in 2003. Spain also offered a site at Vandellos on April 17 2002, but the EU decided to concentrate its support solely behind the French site in late November 2003. From this point on the choice was between France and Japan. On May 3 2005, the EU and Japan agreed to a process which would settle their dispute by July.
At the final meeting in Moscow on June 28 2005 the participating parties agreed on the site in Cadarache in Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur, France.
Construction of the ITER complex is planned to begin in 2008[4], whilst assembly of the tokamak itself is scheduled to begin in the year 2011. These dates are guides only however, and one could reasonably expect political, financial or even social issues to alter them substantially.
Funding
As it stands now the proposed costs are 10 billion Euro for the construction of ITER, its maintainence and the research connected with it during its lifetime. At the June 2005 conference in Moscow the six participating members of the ITER cooperation agreed on the following division of funding contributions: 50% by the hosting member, the European Union and 10% by each non-hosting member. [5]
Although Japan's contribution as a non-hosting member is solely 10%, the EU agreed to grant it a special status so that Japan will provide for 20% of the research staff at Cadarache and be awarded 20% of the construction contracts, while the European Union's staff and construction components contributions will be cut from 50 to 40%.
Power
ITER will use a hydrogen plasma torus operating at over 100 million degrees Celsius. It is designed to produce approximately 500 MW (500 million watt) of fusion power sustained for up to 500 seconds (compared to JET's peak of 16 MW for less than a second). ITER will not generate electrical power.
Future
ITER is intended to be an experimental step between today's studies of plasma physics and future electricity-producing fusion power plants. It is technically ready to start construction and the first plasma operation is expected in 2015.
Criticism
The project has experienced some opposition from environmental bodies such as Greenpeace, who regard the ITER project as "madness" [6], claiming that "Nuclear fusion has all the problems of nuclear power, including producing nuclear waste and the risks of a nuclear accident." Proponents view these claims as misleading, since the stated goals for a commercial power station design are that radioactive waste amounts are hundreds of times less than that of a fission reactor, that it will produce no long-lived radioactive waste, and that it will be impossible for any fusion reactor to undergo a large-scale runaway chain reaction. This is because the amount of fuel planned to be contained in a fusion reactor chamber (about one-tenth of a gram of deuterium and tritium) is only enough to sustain the reaction for about a minute, whereas a fission reactor contains about a year's supply of fuel (100 tons of uranium and plutonium). Greenpeace also claim that "likely, it will lead to a dead end, as the technical barriers to be overcome are enormous." They claim that the US$12 billion spent on ITER could be better used to build 10,000 megawatt offshore windfarms. Again, proponents note that large-scale fusion power, if it works, will be able to produce electricity on demand and with virtually zero pollution (no CO2/SO2/NOx), whereas wind power is intermittent and would require back-up generators for when there is no wind.
See also
- fusion power for a discussion of the advantages, disadvantages, and byproducts of fusion energy production.
- JET
- JT-60
- MAST
- START
- Magnetic fusion energy
- Nuclear fusion
- Nuclear reactor
- Plasma physics
- Timeline of nuclear fusion
References
External links
- Against ITER (French site)
- ITER home page, includes pictures and diagrams available to use for educational purposes
- ITER Technical Objectives
- EFDA home page
- FIRE home page, with current news on ITER and other burning plasma developments
- IFMIF home page.
- Fusion Energy Educational Web Site of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
- The Fast Track To Fusion Power by Chris Llewellyn Smith of the UK Atomic Energy Agency