What is a tokamak? - ITER
The tokamak is an experimental machine designed to harness the energy of fusion; inside a tokamak, a fusion plasma is created and confined by strong magnetic fields. The energy produced through the fusion of atoms in the plasma is absorbed as heat in the walls of the vessel. Just like a conventional power plant, a fusion power plant will use ...
Making it work - ITER
ITER is designed to achieve and sustain fusion reactions at a scale that will enable the study of a controlled "burning" (self-heating) plasma. However, achieving sustained fusion reactions is only one piece of the puzzle. To harness fusion as a practical energy source, several key challenges must be addressed.
ITER - the way to new energy
Conceived at the very frontier of what is possible to design, manufacture, and assemble, the ITER device— a tokamak —will be the world’s largest and most powerful, capable of creating a “little star” on Earth. It all starts in 1985…. ITER ("The Way" in Latin) is one of the most ambitious energy projects in the world today.
In a Few Lines - ITER
In southern France, 33 nations* are collaborating to build the world's largest tokamak, a magnetic fusion device that has been designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy based on the same principle that powers our Sun and stars. The experimental campaign that will be carried out at ITER is ...
What will ITER do?
ITER will provide a unique opportunity to test mockup in-vessel tritium breeding blankets in a real fusion environment. 5) Demonstrate the safety characteristics of a fusion device. In 2012, when the ITER Organization obtained licensing as a nuclear operator in France, the ITER fusion device became the first in the world to have successfully ...
ITER in France
The local governments around ITER have also been strongly implicated in the project from the site negotiations phase. The General Councils from the six départements closest to ITER (Hautes Alpes, Alpes de Haute Provence, Alpes Maritimes, Vaucluse, Var and Bouches du Rhône)—together with the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur Regional Council and the Communauté du Pays d'Aix—have contributed a ...
On The Road to ITER
October 1986. At the Reykjavik (Iceland) US-USSR Summit on 11-12 October 1986, an agreement is reached between the European Union (Euratom), Japan, the Soviet Union and the USA to jointly pursue the design for a large international fusion facility, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). Loading.
History - ITER
The ITER story. ITER was set in motion at the Geneva Superpower Summit in November 1985, when the idea of a collaborative international project to develop fusion energy for peaceful purposes was proposed by General Secretary Gorbachev of the former Soviet Union to US President Ronald Reagan. One year later, an agreement was reached: the ...
Building ITER
The ITER Project is currently under construction on a 180-hectare site in southern France. Thirty-nine buildings and technical areas house the ITER Tokamak and its plant systems. The heart of the facility—the Tokamak Building—is a seven-storey structure in reinforced concrete that sits 13 metres below the platform level and 60 metres above.
What is Fusion? - ITER
Over billions of years, the gravitational forces at play in the universe have caused the hydrogen clouds of the early universe to gather into massive stellar bodies. In the extreme density and temperature of the stars, including our Sun, fusion occurs. Fusion is the energy source of the Universe, occuring in the core of the Sun and stars.