International Nuclear Fusion Project May Be Delayed By Years, Its Head Admits

An international project in nuclear fusion may face years of delays, its boss has said, weeks after scientists in the United States announced a breakthrough in their own quest for the coveted goal. The Guardian reports: The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) project seeks to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy. Installed at a site in southern France, the decades-old initiative has a long history of technical challenges and cost overruns. Fusion entails forcing together the nuclei of light atomic elements in a super-heated plasma, held by powerful magnetic forces in a doughnut-shaped chamber called a tokamak. Iter's previously stated goal was to create the plasma by 2025. But that deadline will have to be postponed, Pietro Barabaschi -- who in September became the project's director general -- told Agence France-Presse during a visit to the facility. The date "wasn't realistic in the first place," even before two major problems surfaced, Barabaschi said. One problem, he said, was wrong sizes for the joints of blocks to be welded together for the installation's 19 metres by 11 metres (62ft by 36ft) chamber. The second was traces of corrosion in a thermal shield designed to protect the outside world from the enormous heat created during nuclear fusion. Fixing the problems "is not a question of weeks, but months, even years," Barabaschi said. A new timetable is to be worked out by the end of this year, he said, including some modification to contain the expected cost overrun, and to meet the French nuclear safety agency's security requirements. Barabaschi said he hoped Iter would be able to make up for the delays as it prepares to enter the full phase, scheduled for 2035.

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