ITER
The world's largest tokamak, an experimental fusion reactor being built in southern France by Japan, Europe, the United States, Russia, China, South Korea and India.
Its goal is to produce ten times as much fusion power as the heating power put into the plasma (Q = 10, about 500 megawatts) for several hundred seconds[1]. It will not generate electricity. It exists to create a plasma that keeps itself burning by fusion and to test together the technologies a reactor needs.
It began with the 1985 US–Soviet summit, and seven members signed the agreement in 2006. Construction has slipped repeatedly; under the new plan announced in 2024, operation starts in 2034 and full D-T operation in 2039. Smaller private machines may deliver results first, which raises the question of what ITER's role will be.
Related terms
- TokamakA doughnut-shaped machine that confines plasma by combining the magnetic field of external coils with the field produced by a current driven through the plasma itself. The dominant approach to magnetic confinement.
- Q valueFusion energy released divided by the energy put in from outside to heat the plasma. Q = 1 is breakeven; Q becoming infinite corresponds to ignition.
- Demonstration reactorThe step after an experimental reactor: a machine meant to show that fusion can actually generate electricity. It comes just before a commercial plant.