Prague, 08/05/2009 (Agence Europe) - The tokamak COMPASS, a thermonuclear fusion reactor transferred from England in 2007 and started up in Prague in April 2008, installed at the Institute of Plasma Physics at the Czech Academy of Sciences (AVCR), illustrates “European cooperation in nuclear fusion research”, said Dr Radomír Pánek during a visit to the installation as part of the Research Connection conference.
The Czechs, who have been members of EURATOM for almost 10 years, already had considerable expertise in this area, from work carried out on the tokamac Castor, smaller than COMPASS and developed by the Russians in the 70s. Pánek pointed out that COMPASS uses “the fusion of Deuterium and Tritium as the fuel”. These two light nuclei, isotopes of hydrogen are produced from lithium, a metal of which “the Czech Republic has substantial deposits”.
A major centre for research into nuclear fusion in Europe, COMPASS is similar in many ways to the ITER reactor in Cadarache, France, and can be sued to solve big ITER scientific problems, explained Dr Panek. Using the Euratom programme, the European Commission is supporting the functioning of COMPASS and training young experts. Symbolising East-West working on nuclear fusion (the project is being worked upon by nuclear fusion labs in Hungary, Portugal, Germany, the UK, France etc), COMPASS illustrates the spill-over of R&D on industry. For example, the energy for tokamak comes from two generators built by CKD Group of the Czech Republic. (Y.P. trans fl)