Saint-Paul-lès-Durance (France) (AFP)
The assembly of the gigantic reactor of the international Iter project, which aims to control the fusion of hydrogen and generate almost inexhaustible energy, like that of the sun, officially began on Tuesday in the south of France.
"With fusion, nuclear can be a promise for the future", by offering us "non-polluting, carbon-free, safe and practically waste-free energy", underlined President Emmanuel Macron, in a pre-recorded video broadcast during the ceremony organized at the Iter site in Saint-Paul-lès-Durance (Bouches-du-Rhône).
"Iter is a promise of peace and progress", insisted the Head of State about this international project launched by a 2006 treaty and bringing together 35 countries, or the entire European Union (with the United Kingdom) , Switzerland, Russia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United States.
Representatives of seven of Iter's partners spoke at the ceremony, all remotely in pre-recorded videos. South Korean head of state Moon Jae-In praised "the largest scientific project in the history of mankind" and this search for "new scientific and technological frontiers", with this "shared dream of creating a clean and secure energy by 2050 ".
Launched almost 15 years ago, the Iter project, on the banks of the Durance, about forty kilometers from Aix-en-Provence, aims to recreate the unlimited energy produced by the sun and the stars, via the fusion of hydrogen, in the hope of finding an alternative to fossil fuels.
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, South Korea or Italy.
The assembly procedure should last until the end of 2024, said Bernard Bigot, CEO of Iter.
This gigantic reactor will make it possible to reproduce the hydrogen fusion reaction that occurs naturally in the heart of the sun: concretely, this fusion will be obtained by bringing to a temperature of the order of 150 million degrees a mixture of two isotopes of l hydrogen transformed into plasma.
Iter could produce its first plasma in late 2025-early 2026 and the reactor could reach full power in 2035.
If it is mastered, the fusion of hydrogen would make it possible to overcome fossil fuels. Obtained from fuels such as water and lithium, it has the advantage of not generating radioactive waste, unlike a nuclear reactor.
© 2020 AFP