independent | Over the next few years about a million individual components of the
highly complex fusion reactor will arrive at the Cadarache site from
around the world. They will be assembled like a giant Lego model in a
nearby building which has a volume equal to 81 Olympic-sized swimming
pools.
Nothing is left to chance in a project that has defied
potential Babel-like misunderstandings between the collaborating
nations. The design, development and construction of a machine that will
attempt to emulate the nuclear fusion reactions of the Sun is proving
to be a triumph of diplomacy, as well as science and engineering.
“It
is the largest scientific collaboration in the world. In fact, the
project is so complex we even had to invent our own currency – known as
the Iter Unit of Account – to decide how each country pays its share,”
says Carlos Alejaldre, Iter’s deputy director responsible for safety.
“We’ve
passed from the design stage to being a construction project. We will
have to show it is safe. If we cannot convince the public that this is
safe, I don’t think nuclear fusion will be developed anywhere in the
world,” Dr Alejaldre said.
“A Fukushima-like accident is
impossible at Iter because the fusion reaction is fundamentally safe.
Any disturbance from ideal conditions and the reaction will stop. A
runaway nuclear reaction and a core meltdown are simply not possible,”
he said.
Conventional nuclear power produces energy by atomic
fission – the splitting of the heavy atoms of uranium fuel. This
experimental reactor attempts to fuse together the light atoms of
hydrogen isotopes and, in the process, to liberate virtually unlimited
supplies of clean, safe and sustainable energy.
Nuclear fusion has
been a dream since the start of the atomic age. Unlike conventional
nuclear-fission power plants, fusion reactors do not produce high-level
radioactive waste, cannot be used for military purposes and essentially
burn non-toxic fuel derived from water.
Many energy experts
believe that nuclear fusion is the only serious,
environmentally-friendly way of reliably producing “base-load”
electricity 24/7. It is, they argue, the only way of generating
industrial-scale quantities of electricity night and day without relying
on carbon-intensive fossil fuels or dangerous and dirty conventional
nuclear power.
