The ITER Site
3 min read · Energy Atlas Editorial
The ITER 180-hectare site is located near Saint Paul-lez-Durance, southern France.
The ITER 180-hectare site is located near Saint Paul-lez-Durance, southern France. Its main feature is a 42-hectare platform, one of the largest man-made levelled surfaces in the world. It measures 1 kilometre long by 400 metres wide, and its size could be compared to 60 soccer fields. There are 39 buildings, facilities and power supplies necessary for the operation of the biggest fusion machine on Earth.
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Articles
The Next Step on the Way Toward a Thermonuclear Fusion Power Plant
In the beginning of the 20th century, the potential energy of the atom was discovered.
3 min read
Main Parameters
The ITER is an experimental device designed to demonstrate the possibility of harnessing energy from thermonuclear fusion.
3 min read
Timeline
From 1985 to 2050 ...
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Record Breakers
Being the largest tokamak ever built, the ITER is a record holder in many ways.
3 min read
Magnets
The ITER magnet system will be the largest and most integrated superconducting magnet system ever built. It will produce magnetic fields that will initiate, confine, shape and control the ITER plasma.
5 min read
Vacuum Vessel
Plasma will be held inside a steel torus called a vacuum vessel. It was proven that the bigger the plasma volume, the better the confinement, so the ITER vacuum vessel will be really big.
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Blanket
Blanket protects vacuum vessel from harsh conditions provided by fusion plasma. Because the vessel cannot be replaced, any damage to it will incur would cause termination of experiments.
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Divertor
For a successful fusion reaction only the presence of fuel (deuterium and tritium in the case of ITER) in the plasma core is needed; all other particles, whether impurities or helium ash, are unwanted and need to be diverted away from the plasma, because they could cause energ…
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Cryostat
During ITER operation the 150 million kelvin hot plasma core will be just a few meters away from only 4 Kelvin cold toroidal magnetic coils.
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Tritium Production
The ITER machine will be the first thermonuclear reactor fully designed to operate with deuterium-tritium fusion reaction.
4 min read
Cooling
Tokamak ITER operation would not be possible without several types of cooling methods, because heat generated by fusion must be discarded.
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Diagnostics
The main goal of the ITER is not to just create fusion plasma but to get as much information about such plasma as possible.
4 min read
External Heating
Successful deuterium-tritium fusion reaction requires 150 million Kelvin, a temperature that is not easy to reach.
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Disruptions and Instabilities
Plasma never behaves calmly and shortly after its creation begins to show an assortment of instabilities.
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