The machine assembly phase has launched for the world’s largest nuclear fusion device. Completion of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), under construction in southern France since 2010, is scheduled for 2025.

The assembly phase for advancing the experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor will require the successful ITER is designed to produce a ten-fold return on energy, or 500 MW of fusion power from 50 MW of input heating power. Source: ITERintegration of millions of parts built all around the world, including a toroidal field coil from Europe and two from Japan. The first vacuum vessel sector transported from Korea is expected on site in the near term.

ITER is designed to produce a ten-fold return on energy, or 500 MW of fusion power from 50 MW of input heating power. While the system will not capture the energy it produces as electricity, it is expected to demonstrate the integrated operation of technologies for a fusion power plant. The magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment will allow researchers to study plasmas under conditions similar to those expected in a future power plant and to test technologies such as heating, control, diagnostics, cryogenics and remote maintenance.

The system will also demonstrate a deuterium-tritium plasma in which the reaction is sustained through internal heating. Scientists are confident that the plasmas in ITER will not only produce fusion energy but will remain stable for longer periods of time.