Build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor?
DOI: 10.1063/1.881499
Controlled fusion represents an opportunity to replace fossil fuels and nuclear fission as energy sources. Intensive research aimed at the peaceful utilization of thermonuclear energy, now in its 46th year, has benefited enormously from vigorous international scientific exchange and collaboration. Much has already been accomplished. In the approach to controlled fusion that uses magnetic confinement—the subject of this opinion piece—plasma temperatures obtained in experimental devices have risen from a few electron volts to over 40 keV; energy confinement times have stretched from tens of microseconds to over a second; total nuclear energy output has gone from zero to a few megajoules, amounting to about 30% of the externally supplied plasma‐heating energy.
References
1. International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, Establishment of ITER: Relevant Documents, IAEA/ITER/DS/1, ITER Documentation Series, IAEA, Vienna (1988).
2. M. Huguet, in Proc. 15th IEEE/NPSS Symposium on Fusion Engineering, IEEE, New York (1994), vol. 1, p. 1.
3. President’s Committee of Advisers on Science and Technology, The US Program of Fusion Energy Research and Development: Report of the Fusion Review Panel, Washington, DC (July 1995).
4. Fusion Energy Advisory Committee, A Restructured Fusion Energy Sciences Program, US Department of Energy, Office of Energy Research, Washington, DC (27 January 1996).
More about the Authors
Andrew M. Sessler. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California.
Thomas H. Stix. Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.
Marshall N. Rosenbluth. University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California.
