The Iter project was launched by an international treaty in 2006. - D. Cole / AP / SIPA

  • The international Iter project brings together 35 countries. It was launched in 2006.
  • The hydrogen fusion reactor is installed in Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, north-east of Marseille.
  • Iter could produce its first plasma at the end of 2025. But it will not produce electricity until 2060, at best.

Enthusiasts speak of "artificial sun", skeptics of "scientific mirage". The assembly of the Iter project reactor began on Tuesday in Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, north-east of Marseille. For Emmanuel Macron, "with fusion, nuclear can be a promise for the future" by offering us "non-polluting, carbon-free, safe and practically waste-free energy". He was speaking in a pre-recorded video broadcast during the ceremony organized on the Saint-Paul-lès-Durance site.

Commenting on this international project launched by a 2006 treaty and bringing together 35 countries, i.e. the entire European Union (with the United Kingdom), Switzerland, Russia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United States, the South Korean head of state Moon Jae-In also hailed in video "the greatest scientific project in the history of mankind", and this "shared dream of creating clean energy and safe by 2050 ”.

The fusion of hydrogen does not generate waste

A dreamed alternative to fossil fuels such as oil, gas or coal, which emit CO2, hydrogen fusion could also replace nuclear energy: if the fission of the atom produces radioactive waste for tens of thousands of years. 'years, the fusion of hydrogen does not generate long-lived waste, insisted Bernard Bigot, the CEO of Iter.

Another advantage: the fuels necessary for this fusion, extracted from water and lithium, are available and, according to Bernard Bigot, able "to ensure the supply of a fleet of reactors for millions of years, a gram of fuel releasing as much energy as eight tonnes of oil ”.

Magnets capable of lifting an aircraft carrier

In recent months, several components of this experimental reactor called "Tokamak" - some as tall as a four-storey building and weighing several hundred tons - have been delivered to the site from India, China, Japan, from South Korea or Italy.

And the size scales make you dizzy. By itself, the most powerful of Iter's magnets, the one that will initiate the electric current within the plasma, could thus lift an aircraft carrier.

A million parts to assemble

The elements arriving little by little, it remains to assemble the million pieces of this three-dimensional puzzle, a job which should last until 2024 for the 2,300 people present on the site.

This gigantic reactor will make it possible to reproduce the hydrogen fusion reaction which occurs naturally in the heart of the sun and the stars: in concrete terms, this fusion will be obtained by bringing to a temperature of the order of 150 million degrees a mixture of two isotopes of hydrogen transformed into plasma.

Plasma produced from 2025?

Iter could produce its first plasma at the end of 2025-beginning of 2026 and the reactor could reach full power in 2035. As an experimental reactor, Iter will not actually produce electricity. And it is 2060, at best, that it will be necessary to wait to have the first connection to the electrical network of a fusion reactor derived from Iter.

The general manager of Iter at the start of the assembly of the reactor. - D. Cole / AP / SIPA

To generate electricity, these future commercial fusion reactors will simply use the heat produced on the walls of their "tokamak" by the bombardment of neutrons born from the fusion: this heat will be evacuated by a pressurized water circuit to go to supply, in the form of steam, a turbine and an alternator.

Already five years late

Iter, if connected to the electricity grid, would produce only 200 MW of electricity, enough to power some 200,000 homes. Future fusion reactors would have a volume of plasma to supply two million homes for a construction cost and an operational cost "equivalent to those of a conventional nuclear reactor", according to Bernard Bigot.

However, these “artificial suns” are the subject of recurring criticism from environmentalists, notably French, who see in them “a financial pit” and “a scientific mirage”. The project has already taken five years late, with a tripling of the initial budget, to nearly 20 billion euros now.

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