ITER council delays project
DOI: 10.1063/PT.4.0942
In a meeting held 18–19 November, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) council—representing the fusion project’s seven international partners: China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the US—did not automatically confirm the baseline cost, schedule, and design of ITER as expected.
Instead council members requested ITER staff to reevaluate the technical and organizational risks associated with the baseline proposal, particularly regarding the manufacturing and building schedule and report back in three months.
The concern is that the schedule, which calls for the reactor to be built and operational by 2018, may be too optimistic, and as Daniel Clery reported in Science , the cost could be much higher than the ITER partners expect.
Paul Guinnessy
More about the authors
Paul Guinnessy, pguinnes@aip.org
