connaissancedesenergies.org october 6, 2016
AFP
The construction of ITER in the south-east of France, “advance” after experiencing significant delays, and delivery of the first parts of the reactor is planned in 2018, said Thursday the Director General of ITER Organization Bertrand Bigot.
This project, which aims to harness nuclear fusion, “advance” and “urges all technologies on the frontiers of what is possible,” he told AFP the French Bertrand Bigot, who took over in March 2015, the bar project and conducted a truth operation on time and cost, the scale surprised the project partners.
Mr. Bigot said that “beginning in 2018 will be the beginning of the pre-assembly of the tokamak”, the huge magnetic confinement chamber where happens the experience of nuclear fusion, under construction in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance (Bouches-du-Rhône). On June 16, the ITER Council, where project partners representatives sit, has validated a timetable for the test producing a first plasma (electrically charged hot gas) into the reactor in 2025, not in 2020 as originally planned .
“End 2035 we will begin to do real production of fusion energy, and the reactor operating at full power, 500MW in late 2036,” not in 2025-2027 as previously planned, said Mr Bigot, former boss Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique (CEA) french.
“All countries were aware, even if he did not have the specific elements of assessment, that the original timetable was not realistic (…) all countries were somehow relieved to now learn that it was a real calendar “,” credible “and” doable, “he added, calling the previous schedule of” political advertising “. Corollary of these cumulative delays : the cost of ITER blazed. Initially estimated at 5 billion euros, it is now estimated at 18.6 billion (2007-2035), whose “about 8 billion euros,” EU contribution, according to Mr. Bigot.
Subject of an international treaty signed in autumn 2006, ITER aims to reproduce on Earth the limitless energy that powers the sun and stars. The hope is to make nuclear fusion one of the energies of tomorrow. ITER is financed by seven partners – EU, USA, Russia, Japan, China, India, South Korea, mainly in “nature” : the partners provide the organization with the equipment and parts needed to build. Forty-five percent of this public investment is borne by Europe (28 EU countries plus Switzerland).