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ITER, A STEP CLOSER TO REALITY

Energy is the key that move the world. During the last 50 years its consumption has doubled (EIA, 2011) and it is expected to increase by 70% until 2030 (WETO, 2003). However, energy rose is not the only problem, but its consumption on a world scale will increase CO2 emissions more than double over the 1990-2030 period, from 21 to 45 Gt of CO2 (WETO, 2003). These are alarming figures, since CO2 emissions are the main contributor to climate change. For more than 200 years humanity has depended on fossil fuel and the idea that oil reserves are reaching the peak are no longer predictions. For many years, scientists and governments have been working in new energy technologies looking for better alternatives to tackle resources depletion and global warming. Today, science ensures that is possible to reproduce the energy of the stars, that just one gram of fusion fuel has the potential to produce more energy than burning 10 tonnes of coal (MAGPIE, 2008). Fusion energy is the holy grail of the energies. This is because fusion-based nuclear power offers the potential for a clean and almost limitless supply of energy (The Economist, 2008). For over half a century scientists have been working towards developing fusion energy, but this is difficult because of the high temperatures and pressures involved.

Brief History In order to understand the complexity of this technology a brief history is important. In 1905, Einstein provided the first clues on how the Sun works with his E=mc equation. This simple equation predicted that the conversion of a small amount of mass could yield a very large amount of energy (ECRI, 2010) However, it was not until 1920 when the chemist Francis William Aston took precise measurements of the masses of atoms. Subsequently, an astrophysicist Sir Arthiur Eddington recognized the importance of Aston's work, who realised that by burning hydrogen into helium, the Sun would release around 0.7 % of the mass into energy. In 1939, the physicist Hans Bethe completed the picture with a quantitative theory explaining the generation of fusion energy in stars (ECRI, 2010). Several experiments have been conducted, however some unsuccessful as the one in the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, UK during 1930s (Oliphant, Harteck, & Rutherford, 1934). Later on, an original large-scale experimental fusion device called ZETA was built in the late 1940s at Harwell in the UK. This machine worked from 1954 to 1958 showing initial findings and useful results for later devices (ECRI, 2010). After this successful case, research in fusion technology became of interest in France, Germany, the Soviet Union and the US. In 1958, at the Atoms for Peace conference in Geneva this countries formally
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sealed an agreement to start a truly international collaboration that would in time lead to today's ITER experiment in southern France. In 1968, two Russian Tamm and Sakharov constructed the tokamak, a device able to run at temperatures ten times higher than other current experiments. Today, devices use it same principle. Ten years later, some other projects were carried out as the Joint European Torus (JET), the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) in the USA and the Japanese tokamak JT-60 in 1985. After more than 50 years of experiments and disappointments, JET produced for the first time in the world a significant amount of power 1.7 MW from controlled nuclear fusion, in 1991 (ECRI, 2010). Nowadays, there are more than ten nuclear fusion projects around the world (CBS, 2010) trying to reach the holy grail. However, during the visit to the National Grid and according to Paul Cassel fusion processes in the UK consume more energy than they produce, this is the case of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), which is located in Oxfordshire. Nonetheless, a new project called ITER is being carried out in France. According to Mayte Pascual, ITER is currently the most important scientific project in the world (Pascual, 2011). ITER is an acronym for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. The scientific goal of ITER is to deliver ten times the power it consumes (ITER, 2012).

ITER Design and Technology In order to understand ITER, is fundamental to comprehend what is fusion. Nuclear fusion is the process by which nuclei of low atomic weight such as hydrogen combine to form nuclei of higher atomic weight such as helium. Two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium (composed of a hydrogen nucleus containing one neutrons and one proton) and tritium (a hydrogen nucleus containing two neutrons and one proton), provide the most energetically favorable fusion reactants. In the fusion process, some of the mass of the original nuclei is lost and transformed to energy in the form of high-energy particles (MAGPIE, 2008). The sun and all other stars produce energy through thermonuclear fusion reactions. Therefore, this is the most basic form of energy in the universe. Nevertheless, as previous experiences shown this is extremely complicated to recreate on earth, gases need to be heated to enormously high temperatures about 100 millions C to produce a plasma which then needs to be contained for a sufficiently long period for fusion to occur (F4E, 2012)

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Graphic 1. Source ITER

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), that means "the way" in Latin, is a major international experiment with the aim of demonstrating the scientific and technical feasibility of fusion as an energy source (F4E, 2012). ITER aims to produce a significant amount of fusion power of 500MW for about 7 minutes or 300MW for 50 minutes (F4E, 2012). ITER will allow scientists and engineers to develop the knowledge and technologies needed to proceed to a next phase of electricity production through fusion power stations. ITER will attempt to recreate the necessary conditions on earth to generate energy from fusion. This massive device is based on the 'tokamak' concept of magnetic confinement, in which the plasma is contained in a doughnut-shaped vacuum vessel (ITER, 2012). The ITER tokamak will measure 24 metres high and 30 metres wide (F4E, 2012). The fuel, which is a mixture of deuterium and tritium, two isotopes of hydrogenis heated to temperatures in excess of 150 millionC, forming a hot plasma. Moreover, strong magnetic fields are used to keep the plasma away from the walls; these are produced by superconducting coils surrounding the vessel, and by an electrical current driven through the plasma (ITER, 2012)

Graphic 2. Source ITER

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In fusion processes different isotopes of light elements can be paired to achieve fusion. ITER will use the deuterium-tritium (D-T) reaction that has been identified as the most efficient for fusion devices. At this point, is important to highlight that Deuterium can be distilled from all forms of water, is widely available, harmless and virtually inexhaustible resource. For instance, in a litre of seawater, there are 33 milligrams of deuterium and it is regularly produced for scientific and industrial applications. On the other hand, tritium is a fastdecaying radioelement of hydrogen which occurs only in trace quantities in nature. Tritium can be produced during the fusion reaction through contact with lithium. Nevertheless, tritium is produced or 'bred' when neutrons escaping the plasma interact with lithium contained in the blanket wall of the Tokamak (ITER, 2012). According to the information in the website of ITER, the concept of breeding tritium within the fusion reaction needs to be taking into account for the future needs of a large scale fusion power plant. A future fusion plant producing large amounts of power will be required to breed all of its own tritium. ITER will test this essential concept of tritium self-sustainment (ITER, 2012).

The ITER construction work began in 2010 and is expected to be finished in 2019. However, ITER is not the final project, is a fundamental step. After ITER and as part of the same project a Demonstration Power Plant, or DEMO is the next pace. In addition, a conceptual design for such a machine could be done by 2017. If the project succeed, DEMO will lead fusion into its industrial era, beginning operations in the early 2030s, and putting fusion power into the grid as early as 2040 (ITER, 2012). While both are being constructed, complementary research is being carried out around the world in order to support ITER.

Technical and Socio Economical Aspects As stated before, energy is the major problem of this century, and in order to sustain life on earth any kind of technology that preserve the environment needs to be considered and should be open to the benefit of the world and future generations. Fusion energy is a dream for humanity and in theory a solution to most of present problems that the world is facing. According to Fusion for Energy (F4E) this form of energy presents a number of advantages, described below. 1. Power Stations would be inherently safe, with no possibility of meltdown or runaway reactions 2. The basic fuel (sea water) is abundant and available everywhere 3. There is no emission of greenhouse gases, including CO2 and its impact to the environment is very low
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4. There is no high activity nuclear waste that must be considered for the future generations 5. Day-to-day-operation of a fusion power station would not require the transport of radioactive materials 6. Fusion has the potential to fuel the entire the entire world for relatively low cost compared to todays fuels (Silver, 2008)

At this point is important to emphasize that fusion energy is different from fission energy which is a current related practice today. Unlike nuclear fission, which generates energy by splitting atoms, nuclear fusion works on the principle that energy can be released by forcing together atomic nuclei (PE, 2012). Nuclear fission energy has been used successfully over 60 years ago. Moreover, nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 1314% of the world's electricity (WNN, 2010). However, fission nuclear energy has been demonised for some accidents that includes the Chernobyl disaster (1986), Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (2011), and the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 (Time, 2011). Nowadays, China has 25 nuclear power reactors under construction, with plans to build many more (WNA, 2010) while in the US the licenses of almost half its reactors have been extended to 60 years (WNA, 2012) and plans to build another dozen are under serious consideration (The New York Times, 2010) However, Japan's 2011Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster provoked a rethink of nuclear energy policy in many countries (Dahl, 2011). Beside, economic factors, the main disadvantages of fision energy are waste disposal and safety. According to William Nutall this waste have been called the Archilles Heel of the nuclear industry (Nutall, Pollit, & Jamasb, 2006). The world's nuclear fleet creates about 10,000 metric tons of high-level spent nuclear fuel each year (Sovacool, 2011). Consequently, high-level radioactive waste requires sophisticated treatment and management to completely isolate it from the biosphere. This necessitates treatment, followed by a long-term management strategy involving permanent storage, disposal or transformation of the waste into a non-toxic form (Ojovan & Lee, 2005), the timeframes required when dealing with radioactive waste range from 10,000 to millions of years (APS, 2006).

In contrast to fission energy, fusion energy is totally safe as stated by Energy for Fusion, There is very little fuel in the reaction chamber at any given moment (about 1g in a volume of 1000 cubic metres) and if the fuel supply is interrupted, the reactions only continue for a few seconds. Any malfunction of the device would cause the reactor to cool and the reactions would stop (F4E, 2012). Moreover, the basic fuels, deuterium, lithium and the reaction product helium are not radioactive. However, the intermediate fuel, tritium is radioactive, but decays very quickly, producing a very low energy electron, Beta radiation. In air, this electron can only travel a few millimetres and cannot
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even penetrate a piece of paper. Nevertheless, tritium would be harmful if it entered the body, so the facility will have very thorough safety systems and procedures for the handling and storage of tritium. As the tritium is produced in the reactor chamber itself, there are no issues regarding the transport of radio-active materials (F4E, 2012). In addition, extensive safety and environmental studies have led to the conclusion that a fusion reactor could be designed in such a way to ensure that any in-plant incident would not require the evacuation of the local population (F4E, 2012).

According to ITER and F4E there are not major environmental impacts, arguing that the fuel consumption of a fusion power station will be extremely low, and that will not release GHG. For instance, A 1 GW fusion plant will need about 100 Kg of deuterium and 3 tons of natural lithium to operate for a whole year, generating about 7 billion kWh, with no greenhouse gas or other polluting emissions. In contrast to this a coal-fired power plant (without carbon sequestration) requires about 1.5 million tons of fuel and produces about 4-5 million tons of CO2 to generate the same amount of energy (F4E, 2012). The neutrons generated by the fusion reaction cause radioactivity in the materials containing the reaction, such as the walls of the container, but a careful choice of the materials for these components will allow them to be released from regulatory control and possibly recycled about 100 years after the power plant stops operating (ITER, 2012). For this reason, waste from fusion plants will not be a threat for future generations.

ITER is an international program that will cost around $10 billion dollars and it is supported for seven big nations that will bear together the costs of it. The countries that support ITER are: India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, USA, China and the European Union (ITER, 2012). Therefore, collectively, this represents over one half of the worlds population and a diverse range of economies. For the construction of the ITER device, most of the components will be provided by the members, rather than financing them. The EU as host Party will contribute up to about 50% of the construction costs and the other parties will each contribute up to 10% (F4E, 2012). According to Fusion for Energy, the cost of the project, spread over more than 30 years between the parties, and it is modest compared to research expenditure in each party. In the European Union for example, it is less than the budget for the effort in the renewable energies (ITER, 2012). On the other hand, fusion energy has some disadvantages. First, fusion can only occur at extremely high temperatures, which make it difficult to contain, as the French Nobel Laureate in Physics Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, said, "we say that we will put the sun into a box. The idea is pretty. The problem is, we don't know how to make the box." (Kaku, 2008). Second, the energy
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required to make it work could be greater than the output of energy by fusion itself. Finally, and more important current research and experiments are costing and will cost billions of dollars. The ITER project is not supported for everyone. There are many who argue that the project confront several technical challenging problems as mentioned before, which in theory are solved by ITER. However, a number of fusion researchers working on non-tokamak systems, such as Robert Bussard and Eric Lerner, have criticized ITER for diverting funding that they believe could be used for their potentially more reasonable and/or cost effective fusion power plant designs (Bussard, 2006). Most of criticisms often turn around claims of the unwillingness by ITER researchers to face up to potential problems, both technical and economic (Bussard, 2006). In 2005, Greenpeace International issued a press statement criticizing governments funding ITER. This organisation believes that money should have been invested in renewable and existing energy sources, like wind energy (Greenpeace International, 2005). Later on, a French Association Sortir du nuclaire (Get Out of Nuclear Energy) and more than 700 anti-nuclear group, claimed that ITER was a hazard because scientist did not yet know how to manipulate the high-energy deuterium and tritium hydrogen isotopes used in the fusion process (Deutch Welle, 2005). A member of the European Parliament Rebecca Harms, said: "In the next 50 years nuclear fusion will neither tackle climate change nor guarantee the security of our energy supply". Another, French Green party Nol Mamre claims that is important to fight present issues as global warming, and that this could be neglected because of ITER. He stated, "This is not good news for the fight against the greenhouse effect because we're going to put ten billion euros towards a project that has a term of 30-50 years when we're not even sure it will be effective (EurActiv, 2005). However, ITER and its supporters have defended constantly the project. In particular the allegations of its "inherent danger, explaining that unlike fission, fusion is intrinsic safe. Moreover, scientist of ITER assure that researchers in Japan guarantee that a fusion generator should be viable in the 2030s and no later than the 2050s (Hiwatari, Okano, Asaoka, Shinya, & Ogawa, 2005) as argued by others. Relating to costs only in the US, electricity accounts for US$210 billion in annual sales (EIA, 1998). Moreover, Asia's electricity sector attracted US$93 billion in private investment between 1990 and 1998 (EIA, 1998). Just using these figures as example, a worldwide investment into ITER of less than $1 billion per year is not incompatible with current research into other methods of power, which in 2007 totaled US$16.9 billion (UNEP, 2008). This investment should be viewed as an attempt to earn future gains for the environment, people and economy.

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This nations are committing themselves to solve a global challenge. Together the aim is to find a solution for future energy issues, assuring sustainable energy resources. However, this is not only about energy security, this technology will help to reduce environmental and social impacts, such as, resource depletion, water scarcity, poverty, climate change, energy security. Besides, harnessing fusion would provide an environmentally friendly and almost limitless source of energy. This is an expensive project, that will cost at least $10 billion dollars and as any research project, its success is not guarantee. Moreover, according to ITER if it works we will have to wait at least 20 years more to have energy produced in fusion reactors. This is a long way to go yet, but in my view if the money is not invested now, so when? Many argue that the money should be spent in renewables technologies, however both must go together. Today, renewable energies are feasible and a good option. Although this are not good enough to confront the energy issues and all the indirect consequences that this entails, and that humanity is facing today. However, who knows if nuclear fusion will become on time to help us to tackling with climate change roots. Therefore, the economic risks these nations are taking are completely justified taking into consideration that is imperative to find real solutions to sustain life on earth. Personally, I believe that either way this project will contribute to the future of fusion energy, so even if the project is unsuccessful any progress will be achieved.

In addition, extensive informational effort must be done in order to reassure the community that this is a different process from fission. The community need to be aware of fusion advantages. Furthermore, the parties should spread a clear and transparent message to the world and especially to the communities directly involved in ITER. This could be one of the biggest and useful discoveries of human history. According to Osamuy Motojima ITER General Director this transparency is essential for both project and community. This is the only way to make it compatible with the current economic situation. This investment goes beyond from a political period of four years. Nevertheless, the current crisis, support to the project has not decreased according to Carlos Alejaldre General Director of ITER in Spain.

The project is being constructed in Cadarache Southern France, and according to Roger Pizot the Major of Saint Paul Lez Duranze this is a good project and its community is aware of both advantages and disadvantages. Since in France nuclear fission energy has been used for many years, this is not new for them. They believe that is important to work in a new way of nuclear energy, a safety controlled nuclear fusion that will not produce waste for future generations as other projects in France.

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Conclusions According to the information presented above, ITER and its fusion energy technology is a sustainable practice. If ITER succeed, it would provide limitless and clean energy to the world. Besides, current energy technologies that use non- renewable resources could be replaced for other similar nuclear reactors devices. This new technology will save an indefinite amount of GHG released to the atmosphere. This will help to tackle climate change, resources depletion and giving people a better quality of life. Looking back to history, there is a big probability, that this project does not achieve its aims, but either way it will contribute with some progress for future generations. Fusion energy is a fact, but more experiments and studies are needed for it development and further deployment. Furthermore, most of its barriers presented above are technical, and it is too complex to conceive. However, beside this and economics factors that in my view are fully justified all are advantages. There are uncertainties as in every project, even more in a project of this magnitude that uses new technology.

Additionally, it is forecasted by some scientists that oil reserves may run out eventually. So, the world needs urgently new energy resources. In the long-run term fusion may be feasible and the best option. However, in the short-term is necessary to combine efforts in the short-erm investing and developing other renewable energies.

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Kaku, M. (2008). Physics of the Impossible,. MAGPIE. (2008). MAGPIE - IMPERIAL COLLEGE. Recuperado el 13 de March de 2012, de http://dorland.pp.ph.ic.ac.uk/magpie/research/introduction.html Nutall, W., Pollit, M., & Jamasb, T. (2006). Future Electricity Tehcnologies and Sysmtems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ojovan, M. I., & Lee, W. (2005). An Introduction to Nuclear Waste Immobilisation. Amsterdam:. Elsevier Science Publishers, 315. Oliphant, M. L., Harteck, P., & Rutherford, E. (1934). "Transmutation Effects Observed with Heavy Hydrogen" Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Pascual, M. (Direccin). (2011). Energia de Fusion, Proyecto ITER [Pelcula]. PE. (2012). ITER and nuclear fusion: Pro or con-fusion? Power and Energy. Silver, S. L. (2008). Controlled Nuclear Fusion. Sovacool, B. K. (2011). Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power: A Critical Global Assessment of Atomic Energy. The Economist. (,2008). The Future of Energy. The Economist. The Economist. (2008). The Future of Energy. The Economist. The New York Times. (December de 2010). Nuclear Renaissance Is Short on Largess. Time. (2011). The Worst Nuclear Disasters. UNEP. (2008). Global trends in Sustainable Energy Investment. WETO. (2003). European Union. Recuperado el 14 de March de 2012, de http://wwwfusion.ciemat.es/New_fusion/en/Fusion/documentos/weto_final_repo rt.pdf WNA. (10 de December de 2010). Nuclear Power in China. World Nuclear Association. WNA. (March de 2012). Nuclear Power in the USA. World Nuclear Association. WNN. (5 de May de 2010). Another drop in nuclear generation. World Nuclear News.

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