The news was surprising in the context of the war in Ukraine. On November 1, a poloidal field coil, a kind of giant magnet that will be used to contain the plasma in the Iter reactor, left by boat from Saint Petersburg, Russia.
The departure had also been delayed because of the sanctions that weigh on Russian ships. The component should reach Fos-sur-Mer at the end of the month, for installation in Iter’s infrastructure in February.
“Overcoming geostrategic tensions”
“Iter is not a collaboration with Russia, it is an international program of which Russia is a part, recalls Robert Arnoux, in charge of communication. We are just as much Russia as France or China, and there is therefore no collaboration to stop, as the European space agency was able to do with its Russian counterpart, for example. » Beyond this legal aspect, “the historical idea behind Iter is precisely to go beyond geostrategic tensions for an issue of peace, which concerns all of humanity”continues the manager.
The program, launched in 1985 in Geneva, comes from an agreement between the two enemy blocks of the time. While the risk of a nuclear war marked the spirits, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev envisage nuclear power as an instrument of an agreement, an idea carried by the Soviet policy of perestroika. Nuclear fusion, which is found in the heart of the Sun and in H-bombs, must then serve “for the benefit of all mankind” according to their joint declaration, as a source of energy.
Huge pieces under construction around the world
Today, seven entities are involved in Iter: China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States. In Bouches-du-Rhône, where the reactor is being built, 85% of the civil engineering part of the facilities is complete. On the side of the machine itself, assembly began in May 2020 and continues, piece by piece.
These continue to arrive from all participating countries, like the Russian reel. Not all of them are finished in their country of origin, and the manufacturing is more of a craft than an industry, as each one is unique. The Russian ring, one of the six that will equip the reactor in the end, is thus 200 tons and 9 meters in diameter. It is the result of nearly ten years of work. Four of the coils are too large to be moved and must be assembled on site.