ITER Head Confident Fusion Reactor Will Be Built Within 10 Years [View All]

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http://www.worldnuclear.org/_news_database/rss_detail_features.cfm?objID=6815B5C7-DDE1-4925-A87F2657ABF2BBFF

06.05.2010

No. 81 / News in Brief
ITER Head Confident Fusion Reactor Will Be Built Within 10 Years

6 May (NucNet): The international community is confident of accumulating the knowledge necessary to build a nuclear fusion demonstration reactor within 10 years, the director-general of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project has said.

Kaname Ikeda, addressing participants at the ‘Financial Times’ Energy Challenges conference in Brussels, Belgium, said: “ITER is not an electricity producing machine, it is experimental, but we are confident we can build this machine, and show that (fusion) is technologically feasible.”

He said “the design and structure of this machine must be safe and durable”, but he also acknowledged that in taking the “next step to demonstration” a number of challenges remained. “In parallel,” he added “there is the additional aspect of investigating the availability of materials.”

When questioned on the extent of international collaboration for the project, which is located in Cadarache in southern France, Mr Ikeda added that “defence-related technology” was also likely to be of interest to project participants: “I believe this is not only for peaceful purposes.”

ITER, which will be the world’s largest experimental facility to demonstrate the scientific and technical feasibility of fusion power, is a collaborative project comprising six member countries (China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States) and the European Union.