Nuclear Power
Europe continues fusion reactor funding
The ITER experimental fusion reactor has secured funding to take it to the operational level. Sean Ottewell reports.
Se ha asegurado la financiación del reactor de fusión experimental ITER para aplicarlo a nivel operativo. Informa Sean Ottewell.
Der experimentelle ITER-Fusionsreaktor erhält ausreichend Subventionen, um bis zur Betriebsbereitschaft entwickelt werden zu können. Sean Ottewell berichtet.
F
ollowing the European Parliament’s endorsement of the EU budget for the next seven years, a research budget of €80 billion has been secured. Part of this will ensure funding until at least 2020 for ITER, the thermonuclear experimental reactor currently under construction by the ITER International Fusion Energy Organisation at the Cadarache facility in the city of Saint-Paul-lès-Durance in south-eastern France. A fusion reactor is an apparatus that takes the enormous volume of fusion energy generated when light atomic nuclei in the reactor’s fuel, such as deuterium and tritium, fuse in a plasma environment to become heavier nuclei such as helium. Te energy released by this reaction is used to generate power. Seven partners are participating in this large- scale international project: Japan, the EU, the US, Russia, Korea, China and India. Start-up is
planned for 2020. Te funding agreement has been welcomed
by Tim Hender, fusion programme manager at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in the UK. Te centre has gained long experience in fusion reactions with its JET and MAST tokomak reactors. “Tis is good news for European fusion research, for JET and, of course, for CCFE. JET and MAST can continue to address key issues for ITER and the planned work will also make significant strides in developing the DEMO prototype fusion power plant,” he said. Key to the success of ITER is the series of
toroidal field (TF) coils around the central vacuum vessel. Tese form a magnetic ‘cage’ that confines and shapes the hot plasma (Fig. 1). CCFE has gained experience of these with its MAST and JET work, but the coils on ITER will be much larger and create a stronger magnetic field. Any failure here could be catastrophic. Based on its work on the back-up systems it has developed, CCFE has won a contract from ITER to update its magnet failure predictions systems. “My role is to look
at the ‘what ifs’,” said project leader Shangliang Zheng. “If a magnet fails, what effect will there be on the current and temperature? What will the consequences of thermal damage be? Recent advances in computing mean we’re able to run more detailed scenario models so ITER can build on the comprehensive plans they already have in place.” In addition to the
obvious need to guard
Fig. 1. Toroidal field coils form a magnetic ‘cage’ to confine and shape the hot plasma.
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