ITER’s Delay Spells Trouble for Fusion Energy as a Climate Solution
The ITER fusion reactor, a $27 billion project located in France, has completed the installation of its final magnet coil and is expected to be operational in 15 years. However, this delay means that fusion energy is unlikely to be a timely solution to the climate crisis.
ITER is the world’s largest fusion reactor and a collaboration between 35 countries. It contains 19 giant coils of magnets forming a D-shaped ring and the world’s most powerful magnet, which will generate a magnetic field 280,000 times stronger than Earth’s protective magnetic field. Despite significant efforts and billions of dollars invested, the project has faced numerous delays and ballooning costs, now totaling $22 billion for design and manufacturing with an additional $5 billion for unforeseen costs, putting it 15 years behind schedule.
Fusion reactors like the tokamak work by creating superheated plasma before confining it inside a doughnut-shaped chamber with a powerful magnetic field. This process is challenging due to the high temperatures and pressures required to sustain fusion reactions. Scientists have been trying to harness nuclear fusion energy for over 70 years, aiming to replicate the process that occurs at the cores of stars. However, creating a fusion reactor that produces more energy than it uses has been a longstanding goal, but containing the super-hot plasma is a major obstacle. The high temperatures needed for fusion to occur are relatively safe, but finding a way to properly contain the plasma has been difficult, typically done with lasers or magnetic fields.
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