Fusion confusion: World’s largest nuclear reactor won’t power up for 15 years

This announcement means that the hope of generating commercial fusion from ITER is dashed for now, and it will take years for it to offer a viable solution to the climate crisis.

Barabaschi also suggested that the world should not keep waiting for nuclear fusion energy to arrive as a solution for the problems it is facing.

“Fusion cannot arrive in time to solve the problems our planet faces today, and investment in other technologies, known and unknown, is absolutely needed,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Delays in ITER’s project baseline explained

According to Barabaschi, the baseline designed in 2016 has not been feasible for a few years. “Since October 2020, it has been made clear, publicly and to our stakeholders, that First Plasma in 2025 was no longer achievable.”

He also stated that the Covid-19 pandemic had a big role to play in the deadline not being achieved as it shut down some factories supplying ITER components, reduced the associated workforce, and triggered other impacts such as backlogs in maritime shipping, challenges in conducting quality control inspections.

Moreover, the fabrication of some first-of-a-kind parts for the ITER also proved more challenging than previously thought and it led to delays.

The ‘First Plasma’ scheduled for 2025 was designed as a brief, low-energy machine test (100 kiloAmperes), using only hydrogen, to be followed immediately by assembly and operation in four successive stages, reaching full plasma current (15 MegaAmperes, 150x higher current than in the First Plasma of the 2016 Baseline) later, in 2033.

“We could have retained the Baseline 2016 roadmap, but this would have been illogical—based on the availability of additional key components to construct a more complete machine,” the official said, according to a press release.

The new baseline and project goals

According to ITER officials, the new baseline envisions the start of research operation (SRO) in 2034, featuring a more complete machine, to be followed by 27 months of substantive research.

The achievement of full magnetic energy will be about three years delayed from the previous baseline, from 2033, now targeted in 2036.

The Deuterium-deuterium fusion operation is targeted for 2035 at about the same time as in the previous baseline. However, the start of the Deuterium-Tritium Operation Phase will be about four years delayed from the previous baseline, from 2035 to 2039.

One another key update is that the reactor will now use tungsten instead of beryllium for the First Wall (plasma-facing material).

Over 30 countries are collaborating to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in southern France. 

The ITER design also uses the tokamak approach, in which hydrogen fuel is injected into a torus or donut-shaped vacuum chamber and heated to make plasma and replicate conditions on the Sun. At extremely high temperatures of 150 million degrees, the fusion reaction begins to occur. 

The ITER design of the tokamak uses niobium-tin and niobium-titanium as the material of choice for its magnets. The coils are energized with electricity and then cooled to temperatures of four degrees above absolute zero (-269 degrees Celsius) to make them superconducting.