Is ITER the Answer to Our Energy Problems?

Two months ago, representatives from the European Union, the United States, Russia, Japan, India, China and South Korea met in France to discuss the future of the ITER project, a massive experiment based in southern France to determine whether a commercial nuclear fusion reactor is technologically and economically feasible. At this meeting, despite the severe budget pressures caused by the present global economic situation, it was determined to allocate the necessary funds to allow the project to go forward.

Discussions on launching the ITER project began all the way back in 1985, but it was only in 2005 that a location was selected and it wasn't until 2007 that serious work on the project began. Recently, concerns have been raised about whether the participants will live up to their responsibilities in terms of funding, but the recent meeting seems to have laid these concerns to rest, at least for the moment.

ITER stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. Incidentally, it also means "the way" in Latin. If the project is successful, it could open the door for commercial fusion power by the middle of the century, thereby ending humanity's reliance on fossil fuels and potentially solving the vast majority of the world's environmental problems at a stroke.

The process of nuclear fusion is simple. Indeed, it is the same process that powers the Sun. By bringing isotopes of hydrogen together and causing them to fuse, a tiny amount of matter is converted into an enormous amount of energy. If harnessed, this energy can be used in precisely the same manner as in any other power plant, driving steam turbines to produce electricity.

The advantages of nuclear fusion are mind-boggling. Unlike fossil fuel power plants, there would be no production whatsoever of greenhouse gases. Unlike fission nuclear reactors, there would be no possibility of any form of Chernobyl-style meltdown and there could be no production of any material which could be used to make nuclear weapons. While the fusion reaction itself produces no radioactive waste, parts of the reactor wall would gradually become mildly radioactive over time, but this is a matter of little concern, as the amounts of radioactive material would be minuscule and they would have a half-life of less than a century.

Perhaps the greatest advantage to nuclear fusion is the fact that the fuel is readily available in enormous quantities all over the world. The most convenient fusion reaction would be combining hydrogen isotopes of deuterium and tritium in a fusion reactor. Deuterium can be obtained by ocean water, while tritium can be produced in the reactor itself. In other words, the fuel for our potential nuclear fusion reactors is as cheap as we could possibly hope for it to be.

Considering the advantages of nuclear fusion, it's easy to wonder why we haven't built large numbers of fusion reactors all across the world already. The answer is that the engineering challenges to achieve economical fusion (in which more power is generated than is required to keep the reaction going) are immense. Not only that, but they are enormously expensive. Until we master the technology and devise effective techniques, nuclear fusion will remain a dream.

That's what the ITER project is all about. The seven partners in the project will share the cost, estimated at tens of billions of dollars, in order to build and operate an experimental reactor that will be used to design and develop the necessary technology and techniques over two decades or more. Assuming it is successful, it could serve as a prototype for genuine commercial nuclear fusion reactors that could be operating throughout the world by the middle of the century.

The project is enormously expensive, but not nearly so expensive as the International Space Station (which, unlike ITER, has no specific object or goal in mind). Considering the potential payoff of commercially feasible fusion power, the investment is certainly worth the risk. While it would be foolish to imagine fusion as some sort of silver bullet that will solve all the world's energy problems instantaneously, it certainly has the long-term potential to be an enormously important part of the world's energy matrix in decades to come. But it will only work if we start now.

Below is a brief documentary, in two parts, produced by the European Union to give a general background of nuclear fusion power in general and the ITER project in particular. Keep in mind that it was created in 2005, and a great deal has happened since then.