International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)
Location: Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, Provence, southern France
Type: Nuclear Research Facility
Status: Under construction
Year of establishment: 2007
Installed Capacity: 500 MWt
Project Description
It is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering mega-project. It is an experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor that is being built next to the Cadarache facility in Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, in Provence, southern France.
Purpose/Application
Fusion power has the potential to provide sufficient energy to satisfy mounting demand, and to do so sustainably, with a relatively small impact on the environment. ITER's planned successor, DEMO, is expected to be the first fusion reactor to produce electricity in an experimental environment.
Unique Aspect
Nuclear fusion has many potential attractions. Firstly, its hydrogen isotope fuels are relatively abundant – one of the necessary isotopes, deuterium, can be extracted from seawater, while the other fuel, tritium, would be bred from a lithium blanket using neutrons produced in the fusion reaction itself. Furthermore, a fusion reactor would produce virtually no CO2 or atmospheric pollutants, and its radioactive waste products would mostly be very short-lived compared to those produced by conventional nuclear reactors.
Future Plans
It will be the world's largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment.
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