ITER Project Presentation

Wikipedia :

ITER is an international tokamak (magnetic confinement fusion) research/engineering proposal for an experimental project that will help to make the transition from today's studies of plasma physics to future electricity-producing fusion power plants.

The program is anticipated to last for 30 years — 10 for construction, and 20 of operation — and cost approximately US$ 9.3 billion [2], which would make it one of the most expensive modern technoscientific megaprojects. It will be based in Cadarache, France. It is technically ready to start construction and the first plasma operation is expected in 2018.

ITER will be designed to produce approximately 500 MW (500,000,000 watts) of fusion power sustained for up to 400 seconds[3] (compared to JET's peak 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. Although ITER is expected to produce net power in the form of heat in the amount 5-10 times more than the amount of energy consumed to heat up the plasma to fusion temperatures, the generated heat will not be used to generate any electricity.

According to the ITER consortium, fusion power offers the potential of "environmentally benign, widely applicable and essentially inexhaustible"[4][5] electricity, properties that they believe will be needed as world energy demands increase while simultaneously greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced,[6] justifying the expensive research project.

ITER was originally an acronym for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, but that title was dropped due to the negative popular connotation of "thermonuclear," especially when in conjunction with "experimental". "Iter" also means "journey", "direction" or "way" in Latin[7], and this double meaning reflects ITER's role in harnessing nuclear fusion as a peaceful power source.