Brussels, 19/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - The future experimental nuclear fusion reactor ITER, a global project being built in Cadarache (France), will start its work in 2018, but will not be fully operational until eight years later in 2026, the Council of the project, meeting in Mito, Japan, announced on Thursday 18 June. The meeting did not discuss the funding of ITER, but the total cost of the project, estimated at €10 billion, is likely to be considerably increased over the next months.
Construction in stages. The reactor will be put into operation in two stages, in accordance with a realistic timetable, the final press release states. This change to the timetable was decided upon by the seven partners of the scientific project, which brings together the European Union, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States. The Iter council has "endorsed as a working basis for development of the project the phased approach to the completion of Iter construction and the target date for First Plasma by the end of 2018, maintaining operation with Deuterium and Tritium fuels in 2026", the press release explains. The aim of Iter is to achieve a continuous functioning to develop, by 2050 if all goes according to plan, electric power stations producing virtually limitless energy (deuterium and tritium are extremely plentiful in sea water) and generating little waste. When the Iter agreement was signed three years ago, the timetable provided for the achievement of an initial hydrogen-hydrogen fusion in 2016. This delay of two years corresponds to the extra time taken by the negotiations on the choice of site. "In order to substantially reduce overall risk the primary components of the Iter machine will be assembled and tested together before the progressive installation of in-vessel components continues", the press release goes on to state. The objective is a substantial reduction of operational risks, as was the case for the LHC, the large particle accelerator built close to Geneva, which broke down in September 2008. It is this stage-by-stage approach which was adopted during the construction of all major tokamaks. "The Council recognized that this is a responsible way to build Iter", said the president of the Iter Council, Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith. "Agreement on this approach was a key milestone towards the planned adoption of the baseline at the next meeting in November", he said.
A sharply increasing budget. In 2001, the cost of ITER was set at €10 billion: €5bn for its construction and €5bn to run it, with almost half of the total to be borne by the European Union. However, the final bill is likely to be a lot higher, due, amongst other things, to steep rises in the cost of raw materials, particularly copper for the giant magnets used to confine the plasma, changes in prices offered by the equipment suppliers, but also by the complexity of the challenges faced. The question will be dealt with in Cadarache in November at the forthcoming Iter Council. Calls for tenders will be launched early in 2011. "The outcome of today's Council is an important step in the right direction, but a number of conditions still have to be met to reach this goal", stressed Janez Potoènik, the European Commissioner for Science and Research. "Together with our international partners, we will intensify our work to obtain a credible cost assessment, including means to contain them and to find ways to further improve the efficiency of the project's management at international and EU level", he concluded. (B.C./transl.fl)