Background
ITER will produce energy by fusing deuterium and tritium to helium.
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. 1 gram of deuterium-tritium mixture in the process of
nuclear fusion produces an amount of energy equivalent to burning 8 tonnes of oil.
[15]
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.
[16] 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 (fission reactors).
On 21 November 2006, the seven
participants formally agreed to fund the creation of a nuclear fusion reactor.
[17] The program is anticipated to last for 30 years – 10 for construction, and 20 of operation. ITER was originally expected to cost approximately €5 billion, but the rising price of raw materials and changes to the initial design have seen that amount almost triple to €13 billion.
[10] The reactor is expected to take 10 years to build with completion originally scheduled for 2019, but construction has continued into 2020.
[18] Site preparation has begun in
Cadarache, France, and procurement of large components has started.
[19]
When supplied with 300 MW of electrical power, ITER is expected to produce the equivalent of 500 MW of thermal power sustained for up to 1,000 seconds[20] (this compares to
JET's consumption of 700 MW of electrical power and peak thermal output of 16 MW for less than a second) by the fusion of about 0.5 g of
deuterium/
tritium mixture in its approximately 840 m3 reactor chamber. The heat produced in ITER will not be used to generate any electricity because after accounting for losses and the 300 MW minimum power input,
the output will be equivalent to a zero (net) power reactor.
[7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER