ITER Live : Start of Machine Assembly

good morning to those of you here with us in provost france good afternoon good evening and in some cases very early morning to those of you joining us from eater member countries around the world my name is laban koblenz and i am the head of communication here at the eater project it is my pleasure to welcome all of you to this first less formal segment of today's broadcast in which we will be celebrating the start of machine assembly a new phase at eacher we will spend the next hour showing you the eater work site then at 11 a.m france time we will start the formal ceremony where we will be joined virtually by french president emmanuel macron and leaders from the seven eater members following the ceremony at about 12 30 we will hold a press conference part live part virtual in which you are also welcome to join us and to view this with us to kick off the worksite tour i now send you to dr bernard bego the eater director general who will give you an overview of the eater worksite as ita organization director general i am very pleased to welcome you on the ita site when we are just starting to celebrate for the new phase for tokamak assembly we are around okay this uh very nice province landscape and in front of us indeed we have what we call the tokamak building the tokamak complex indeed which is now completed and behind you have the assembling hall where we are pre-assembling the various components before their installation we are very pleased that the tokamak building has been completed and we take over about last march and now we are ready for assembling all the piece in including very recently we have installed the tokamak okay masterpiece which is what we call the cryostat base on the other side you see the cryogenic plants which also is very well progressing you have all the okay sweet shard installation and the whole the power distribution and just in front of us it is a converting okay building where we will convert the ac to dc power so welcome and we will visit now more detail on the worksite [Music] welcome to the poloidol field coil workshop where the european domestic agencies is manufacturing four of the six horizontal coils we need to have the magnetic cages to be assembled these coils indeed are made of of cable you have a sample of this cable the cable is made of superconducting materials this filament made of titanium nubian okay you have inserted them in a jacket because they are fragile they are in ceramics and they will not be able to sustain the huge magnetic forces so this jacket is a stainless steel jacket very heavy indeed and inside you have a pipe where the liquid okay helium will flow to cool down this superconducting material at minus 270 degrees in order to have it superior conducting and able to transport up to 70 000 ampere of electricity let me explain to you okay these coils as i said we have six of these coils the smallest one are 10 meter diameters and are small enough to be transported there are many factors in china in behalf of europe and in russia the largest one 17 and 24 meter diameters could not be transported and are manufactured in this workshop how we will proceed in order to make the huge magnetic cages we will position the three lowest coils okay in in the cryostat and we will clip okay the 18 vertical coils we named them toroidal coil and we will see some of them very soon in such a way that we have associated the coil with the vacuum vessel because the sector of the valicon vessel will be pre-assembled with the coils and once we have positioned the nine vacuum vessel sectors within 18 toridol field coils we will position the six okay upper coils and we will weld very precisely all together the vacuum vessel sectors in such a way we have a very rigid okay magnetic cages the main challenge for eater is a size as you see 24 meter large nearly 20 meters high with the precision because we need to align the magnetic line very precisely so in this workshop you could see behind me this okay frame the yellow one which will be indeed the support for the implementation of the large 24 coils 24 meter coils in front of us we have the 217 calls which are already manufactured this one is named pf5 and it is completed just we have to install the connection and this one is a pf2 where we are still to impregnate okay the pancake we have piled up when we have winded okay this cable on the appropriate table and so now we are able to check to test these calls and we do it in the tunnel we have just behind we will cool them down at minus 90 degrees at the temperature of the nitrogen and so we will check that the mechanical and electrical properties are according to specification we could not cool them at the lowest temperature of minus 270 degrees because the cryogenic plant is not yet ready so let's move now and see the latest okay coils on site we just arrived a few weeks ago from china and so you will have the full collection the 24 which has on his way to be manufactured the two okay 17 diameter coils and very soon the one of 10 meters so you see all these tools have been very precisely designed and okay manufacturers in order to be able to manipulate all this various equipment i'm sure you see the tunnel okay you could open the tunnel position the coils and make okay the testing properly and so while we are progressing on this long corridor nearly 250 meter long we just arrive and look at what is the pf6 the number six the smallest coil just in front of us we just arrived from china and we and we will check it so here it is coming from china by boat and on ship at marseille harbor and you see we have prepared another small tunnel for the checking and this has been qualified for this mechanical and basic electrical properties but not yet with the other one which are okay at very low temperature as we explained so you remember now okay three type of coils the largest one still ongoing to be manufactured which will be okay ready when we need them in order to be able to assemble the tutorial field coils as well as a vacuum vessel by 2022 and this one which are already okay many factors and ready to be moved in the assembling hall 24 17 and 10. and when you see this one which is already so large you have difficulty to imagine what will be the 24 one very precisely and very rigid and it will be moved on a trailer entering in the assembly hall we will visit in a few minutes from now so if you agree let's move to the other workshop where we will see the toroidal field call which are not manufactured on site they are small enough to be properly transported and assembled here okay let's move good [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] model that's been created by thomas chibolic and martin vavrek at the hungarian center for energy research thank you both very very much tomorrow we will upload these files onto the eater public website so that it can be an educational tool for students and teachers from all over the world you can build this yes you can make your own tokamak in the privacy of your own home if you're a fan or in the classroom or in your maker space and you can follow along with us during eater assembly phase now your tokemac like this one will be a bit smaller than the real thing this is exactly one 100th scale so whereas the eater tokamak is 30 meters high 30 meters in diameter this will be 30 centimeters high 30 centimeters in diameter the outer part what i've removed here so that we can see in is called the the cryostat this is manufactured in india it is a giant thermos a stainless steel chamber that will hold the rest of the tokamak in a vacuum and in a clean and cool environment then you have inside as you can see this donut shaped chamber the plasma chamber called the vacuum vessel and we have removed two segments so that you can see inside but this will be in nine of these sectors each one 40 degrees to make a 360 degree vacuum vessel chamber this is where we inject the hydrogen gas and it is where um we heat it until it becomes uh a plasma and then fusion energy can occur at 150 million degrees so how do you contain that with the magnets we have three magnet systems these circular ring-shaped magnets are called the poloidal field coils this is what dr bigo was showing you on the eater worksite so the first of these is among the smallest the the pf5 this was procured by europe manufactured in china this one on top also quite small being made in saint petersburg russia the rest of them are too big to make and ship so they're being made by europe right here on the each or work site and they help to confine the plasma and to pinch it away from the walls second system is here in blue these are the d shaped or toroidal field magnets half made in japan half made in europe there are 18 of these and together with the six pf coils they will create an invisible magnetic cage that keeps the superheated plasma away from the walls from the steel walls the third system which also helps to create this cage is the central solenoid shown here in green and manufactured in the united states now this one will be the most powerful magnet it's manufactured in six coils in addition to help to create the cage it makes the magnetic flux lines go in a spiral and then in in sort of a twist and it sends these long sustained pulses through the plasma so just this week we actually received the very first of the vacuum vessel segments sectors from korea with these port stubs added by russia and this means that with the toroidal field coils that already have already arrived we can start to assemble the actual eater machine that's why we are celebrating eater assembly today so there are of course many other pieces more than one million components overall in the tokamak but i hope that now you have the general understanding of how we create use magnetic confinement to create fusion energy in a tokamak which we hope will power the future we now return you to dr bernard bego on the eta worksite [Music] thank you if you could help me sorry yes yes please [Music] so we are now in the toroidal field coil workshop where we are preparing the calls which has been manufactures outside the litter site by the domestic agencies indeed you have in front of you two coils which are the first two one which will be pre-assembled with the vacuum vessel coming from korea they are the number 12 and 13. as you can see is very detailed shape with a lot of interface with many other components you see what is there you will see the knot which will allow us to fit the poloidol field calls we have visited a few minutes ago all this part will be assembled with all the components in order to make this coil large magnetic cages okay very precisely positioned and able to provide all the very large magnetic field we could move on and you could see the way it is made is not exactly the same as the other the cable are pre-positioned on okay a stainless plate and we will pile okay the support and at the very end we will put them as it is with the colloidal vehicle with the polymeric resin and this package will be positioned in a case the case is made of steel steel stainless steel and you have to understand in order to contain the coals and not to break them you have to position the external surface of the coils package okay of the cable package and the internal surface of the of the cases with a precision of 0.2 millimeter while the length of this k of circles is nearly 20 meters and 9 meter large very very strict challenge as you could imagine myself i am admiring the capacity of the workers to have made these things so precisely under the specification of the engineers it took years in order to demonstrate the feasibility of all these coils which will be as the pf calls cool down i minus 270 degrees with the liquid alien so this is the back of the coils or the upper part of the chords i would like to show you now the lower part when it will be vertically dressed okay and you see you have a huge frame because we don't want to deform the coils the collars to be very precisely okay maintained in the shape years and it's why there is this heavy frame which will prevent any deformation so now we are entering on the part which is the lower part where you have the electrical connection so again you see the amazing shape of these coils with for example the part which will sit on the cryostat base in order to be able to precisely okay fix every part and also this casing which is just embedding the electrical connection we will need to connect okay these coils 18 of them to the electrical network and with a intensity of 70 000 amperes at a temperature of minus 270 degrees and now we are preparing the last checking in order to be sure that there is no leak in the piping delivering the liquid helium it is on site after the traveling we are able to do that and two of gil well prepare this coil in such a way they will moved to the assembling hall and be dressed up and assemble as i will explain in a few minutes in the okay assembling all with the vacuum vessel sectors for me is really impressive to see the quality of the work and for example when i see this shape here the complexity and hole is according to the strictest okay specification so let's move now to the next okay steps where we will see the cryostat the cryostat base is already in the pit but okay we need now to position what we call the lower cylinder and upper cylinder to assemble them together [Music] [Music] so now we are on the worksite crossing by the upper cylinder of the cryostat it is 30 meter diameter nearly 10 meter high and it has been cocooned in order to maintain a control humidity and temperature in come from india and it has been pre-assembled on the worksite in the workshop we are now visiting we need we pass by near the assembling hall the cleaning facility building as well as a radio frequency heating system okay all these piece are necessary in order to ensure that we will have full control of the hot plasma we are now preparing so really amazing to see this large cocoon okay lower cylinder and upper cylinder indeed we have opened the cocooning very recently because we want to start the assembling and we need this lower cylinder to be positioned in the tokamak pit so we just now arrive to the workshop where we have been able to manufacture the cryostat component indeed it comes in 54 pieces but each of them weighting of the order of 100 tons and the size could be of the order of 10 meters and now they have been assembled in four main piece the four main piece is a base okay like a can when you have a bottom of the can and you have two cylinders you will put one over the other you will weld with the base weld between these two cylinder and after that okay you have a cover a top lid as you see in front of you you have the lower cylinder so it's a huge stainless steel part with a lot of opening all this happening is in order to allow some robots to come in in the vacuum vessel as well as cool water and the hot water we will extract and also many diagnostics this cylinder is 30 meter diameters and we will have to fit the two pieces okay 30 meter diameter above the other 30 meter diameters with a precision of half a centimeter the thickness of this tennis wall is six centimeter and it has to be leak-proof all the welding has to demonstrate that it will not leak even with a very high vacuum so i propose that you enter within the internal okay part or you will see the size of the cylinder all together as well as okay all the very precise penetration this penetration has been fit together in such a way they are fully aligned with the two other parts one it is the vacuum vessel and the other part is the bioshield wall you will visit quite soon so very high precision and very tight okay element has to be assembled in such a way that you confine completely okay the different parts now so i guess you understand the challenge and india as well as some european companies has made a wonderful job in such a way that everything is according to specification without any deviation so far so the size of the port as i explained is appropriate and in order to have a robot coming in for example in order for example to position the tiles which will be covering the wall of the vacuum vessel now i propose to you to move and to enter into the cleaning okay facility building okay so we have to to go around so you see we opened the big door a trailer will come okay and transport the lower cylinder the mass is of the order 400 tons before entering in the cleaning okay facility building it's like a buffer in this cleaning room indeed you will check that it is clean and that there is no dust all specification according to the need of the project and before we go to the next step which is to move them in the assembling hole so this big door will open and it will allow to have the big colloidal field coil just behind us where we are visited the toroidal polyhedron field coils which are the one visited coming from japan and italy and this large vacuum vessel sector and okay cryostat parts so let's enter so we are now in the cleaning facility you see the soil is very clean electronic workshop because we don't want any dust any small material which could not be compatible with okay the functioning of the tokamak so you see the size of the gun tree crane okay able to move the different pieces and we are moving on in order to enter into the assembling hall where we will pre-assemble the piece and also to be able to lift them above the ground okay more than 30 meter high to pass over the tokamak wall and position the component precisely okay in the tokamak pit in what we call the bioshield wall this huge concrete cylinder okay made of okay large concrete and to prevent any leak of the neutrons so let's move as you understand these various pieces has to be assembled with a very high precision is why this assembling all need to be temperature control the temperature which will be 19 degrees plus or minus 0.1 degrees in order to avoid any okay dilatation or contraction of the various pieces from one time to the other one this huge assembling hole 100 meter long 60 meter high 60 meter large is needed to accommodate the various pieces the main points is this huge crane just above us each of them could move up 750 tons and we could couple both of them in order to be able to lift up to 1500 tons with a precision of millimeter and very recently we have been able to move the cryostat bays and position them within the bioshield wall the tokamak pit with a precision of okay millimeter according to specification so we are moving on and we will celebrate in a few minutes the assembling events and we will be very pleased to listen to the various uh dignitaries of the ital members about their perception of the eater project so i would like before we go further to show you something which is quite spectacular they are what we call the assembling line the critical piece of the process is to assemble as i explained to you the vacuum vessel sectors nine of them with the thermal shield because we need to protect the coils from the hot temperature of the vacuum vessel and the toroidal field coils we have to assemble okay two coils with one vacuum vessel and the thermal shield which is appropriate and for that we have designed what we call assembling line there are two assembling lines because it will take between four to six months to assemble one of these vacuum vessel sectors in the coils and we could not afford to multiply six by nine which will be 54 months which will not be compatible with our schedule so we have two assembling lines these tools has been manufactured in korea assembled in europe the principle is quite simple think about a book okay and you make free package of pages of the book okay on the central package you will fix the vacuum vessel sectors on the lateral okay package you will fix the coils 360 tons as we saw a few minutes ago and you will move the pages okay to close the angle and with jacks and you have jacks you will adjust the positioning in the space of the coils and you will pass the coil to the vacuum sector like a ring to the finger of the lady the ring is 360 tons and it has to be positioned with a very high precision it's amazing you see all the jacks able to position the coils in any direction as needed and to position the coils and the vacuum vessel sectors we need to have some special tools one of this is this very large cradle okay where you will install in the of the vacuum vessel sector 450 tons and you will lift up and position in very precise position okay in the uh assembling line you see it is on this support that you will have okay the vacuum vessel sector position and the two panel able to be closed this is over 25 meter high and one it will be pre-assembled with the crane you will lift the whole pro of package and move over over the tokamak wall just in front of us in order to be able to okay position in the tokamak pit and you see this part for example our mockup made of concrete in order to check and train the operators in his capacity to pre-assemble the different pieces i just mentioned about now let's enter into the tokamak as i explained the tokamak has to be very clean is why even if it is a work site we are protecting okay the pieces with some special corridors thank you and so we are moving in front of what we call the tokamak pit with the bioshield wall we just arrived it is precisely here where we will have the plasma 150 million degrees okay burning so it is a famous bioshield wall made of concrete with all the opening which will be fitting with the opening in the cryostat and fitting with the opening in the vacuum vessel you see it it is now completed and so all the piece will come from the roof because they are so large we could not accommodate to them to introduce them through the doors you see already position okay at the bottom of the tokamak pit the cryostat base it is a piece which has been positioned by the end of may and we have been successful to position them with a precision below three millimeter on any parts okay of the cryostat base with the support high precision and very high quality so you will see on the cryostat base this hole which are already drilled where you will position the foot of the poloidol the toridol field call we saw a few minutes ago so 18 of them will be positioned supporting the vacuum vessel with previously the positioning of the colloidal field coils and you will see at the bottom we have these holes which are what we call the feeder okay which will be the the line in order to uh to feed the coils with the 70 000 ampere i was speaking about so let's imagine by end of 2025 when we will have pre-assembled and assembled all the components made the checking and testing of the vacuum vessel capacity and the coils okay magnetic field we will start to have a first plasma after that we will need to complement this uh facility with the equipment needed to collect okay the energy the famous neutron and helium and we will offer by early 2029 the first possibility to the physicist to play with the machine and have a real physics experiment it will not be the full fusion power because we still will need some extra eating but it will be really a major stop ahead and after that some extra eating will be installed and finally the recycling plant in order to recycle the fuels because as i explained already in the vacuum vessel you will have only two grams of fuels one percent of these two ram will fuse producing a lot of power 500 megawatts of eating while you feed in only 50 megawatts so the yield is 10 times larger and so when you will have this fusion you need to extract the helium and to recycle okay the fuel the fuel so once all these various components will be installed we will be ready for full fusion power and the schedule is by okay end of 2035. it could seem long for you but you can imagine how precisely we have to manufacture each of the large components never been done before it is really a first of a kind and quality has to be at the highest level so i guess we could live on okay the workers going on we have a very strict schedule is why we don't stop the work today okay just to be sure that we are all aligned on our schedule okay so i propose to you we move back and we prepare for the ceremony i hope that our worksite tour has given you a sense of the scale and complexity of the eater project we will soon be starting the formal ceremony portion where we will hear from each of each of seven members now you notice that at times we talk about seven members or 35 countries that is because europe's membership is actually held through uratum that means that europe represents both the work of the 27 countries of the european union plus switzerland plus the united kingdom each of the seven members holds a seat on our oversight body the eater council today we will hear from the leaders of each member as well as from the easter council chair i mentioned earlier that the tokamak will be made up of more than one million components and if you take individual comparts more than 10 million parts these components are designed and fabricated in factories laboratories universities all over the world when they arrive here they will all need to fit together and they will need to be on time and according to our rigorous schedule this is what adds complexity to the eacher project but of course it also adds a great value the collaboration of all of these countries each with unique expertise communica contributing to a single machine to a single goal let me point out one more contributor eater's parts are created in general by scientists and engineers but one part a bolt just like the one i am holding here was fabricated by an artist in new york christine corday miss corday was inspired by the eater project and proposed to contribute she forged this 10 centimeter bolt and another one exactly like it manufactured to the same precise material specification as the forty thousand other bolts that were inserted into the steel roof anchors of the tokamak building this one uh inserted by director general bernard bigo himself miss corday calls this work of art santitra or untitled as a way of expressing how art and science often anonymously drive each other to create the best of our human dreams and aspirations this bolt will be constantly watching over the plasma from where we placed her as a silent witness of the work of so many scientists engineers and workers to make eater a success you can read about this and hundreds of other stories that are unique to the eater project on our public website www.eater.org we are now coming to the end of our work site tour i will leave you with a few images from our most recent drone videos as we prepare to start our formal celebration with president emmanuel macron and leaders from around the world starting at 11am france time [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] so [Music] what [Music] so ah [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] what [Music] ah [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning and welcome to all of you who are just now joining our broadcast of the eater start of assembly ceremony we have just concluded the worksite tour and are beginning to start the formal ceremony for that purpose i would like to turn to the man who has been leading this project with remarkable intensity and dedication for the past five years and a little more please welcome dr bernard bego the eater director general thank you very much leban welcome to all of you who are joining us both we are physically present here with me in the heater assembly hall those of you with me here on the stage representing the seven eater members and those of you joining us virtually from all around the world above all on behalf of the global leader community let me express my thanks to the president of france and the other heads of state and ministers representing italy members who are joining this celebration remotely we together with the inter council chair mr lewa de long are deeply honored by your presence and participation it illustrates the importance of what we are celebrating the start of machine assembly at ito today is an historical moment fusion energy is a gift of gods it is because of hydrogen fusion that we are all alive today without fusion taking place in the sun we would not have no light or warmth this would be no life on earth the concept of recreating but incredible energy sources here on earth is a typical human approach to take the best of nature we try to understand nature and then we try with human imagination to recreate what nature shows us but nothing is typical about the eater project it is a first of a kind machine made up of many first of a kind component and breakthrough invention to build this machine the star on earth requires a level of intentional collaboration that is also first of a kind when i think about the significance of this point in ether history as we launch machine assembly phase three points come to my mind first we feel the weight of history it is now 100 years ago since scientists first understood that fusion energy was a power source for the sun and stars it is more than 60 years since the first tokamak was built in soviet union in that context when we consider we have a little more than five years to go before ether's first plasma it does not seem so long whatever we accomplish here at ether clearly we are building on the scientific discovery and technological innovation of decades of researchers and inventors we could not be here if we were not standing on their shoulders let us thank them and pay tribute to their works and wisdom this machine will offer to their successors a unique opportunity to understand for the first time the behavior of an ultra hot ultra low density burning plasma they have been dreaming about second we feel the need for both urgency and passions we know we need a replacement for fossil fuels as soon as possible we understand very clearly the promise of fusion power as a safe reliable environmentally sustainable and virtually unlimited source of energy if fusion power become universal in complement to renewable energies the use of electricity could be expanded greatly to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from transportation building and industry enabling the exclusive use of clean energy will be a miracle for our planet but building a fusion power plant is not easy we are moving forward as rapidly as possible but in order to succeed we must also be deliberate quality and safety have always to be first if we succeed it will be worth all the time and efforts that have brought us to this point thirdly we feel a deep sense of gratitude for the hundering support of it members we are grateful to the government but provide us with funding and direction we are grateful to the one that the 10 000 workers at every level in every italy member countries we are committed to making ether succeed we could not do this alone with your help we have completed about 70 of the total construction work leading to first plasma today as we look forward to the machine assembly phase we know that the hardest part lies ahead construction constructing the machine piece by piece will be like assembling a giant three-dimensional puzzle on an intricate timeline every aspect of project management system engineering risk management and logistics of the machine assembly must perform together with the precision of a switch watch we have a complicated script to follow over the next few years definitively we understand the need of humanity for clean energy our goal is to live a better energy future for children and future generations so we move forward with a deep sense of purpose with gratitude for this historic opportunity we can't we cannot afford to fail it is now my pleasure to introduce mr liu de long mr de long has been one of the leader of the little project for many years leading the chinese domestic agencies as well as representing china in the either council he is the current chair of the eater council i give the floor to mr leo de long thank you director general pico good morning to everybody on behalf of all the members of italy council i would like to repeat and echo the sincere welcome you have already extended to all our guests i would especially welcome with a deep sense of humility our host president mahom of french republic president xi jinping of the people's republic of china my own country and the other heads of state and senior ministers extending congratulations to this celebration your presence in one way or the other is a testimony to the historic importance of this occasion i'm really sorry not to be able to be there in person but it's a privilege to participate in this remarkable event the kovi 19 pandemic has made all of us learn to operate differently often as a distance last month the interior console matched virtually for the first time in its history being at a distance however has not made us care any less about the eater project nor has it reduced our sense of pride and sometimes amazement as we see the outstanding progress that has been made over the past six months with the pandemic impacting so many aspects of our lives this challenging time has coincided with a critical period in the inter schedule i'm referring to the completion transport and arrival at the eater site of the most important first of all kinds of components some of these components have been worked on for over five years or even more than 10 years they weigh hundreds of tons requiring special shipping conditions across oceans over special railways and using unique vehicles when the pandemic hit later council watched with pride as the either community came together to develop a prioritized continuity plan that plan has been carried out with precision in every detail as with countries around the world france has suffered during this pandemic and yet remarkably there has not been a single covey 19 infection on the interwork site it is what direct general bernard pigo has come to call the inter miracle on behalf of the inter council i congratulate dr b gold for his environment leadership during this difficult period and i salute the entire ether community every member every domestic agency every supplier company or contractor and every staff member for their dedication perseverance commitment and hard work if we are able to continue in this way through the machine assembly phase on way to re-embark today i have great confidence that we will succeed thank you thank you very much chairman ok dulong your support is highly appreciated today is a very special day for eater and for all eater members after many years of preparation and a lot of efforts everywhere in the world we are ready to celebrate the start of the totalmak assembly phase indeed we are now able to launch this new phase in parallel with the design and manufacturing phases because we have received recently as planned five years ago all the first component from the little members we needed to proceed the tokamak building and the assembling all from europe the three large pre-assembled parts of the cryostat from india the first sector of the vacuum vessel from korea with parts from india and russia the thermal shield from korea and the two first toridol field coil from japan furthermore the many other components that will complement this first step are all on their way to be delivered through 2022 including the feeders from china and the central solenoid from the us in 206 in paris the seven eater members decided to locate the project in europe more precisely in province france since then france as a host of state has provided the best support to eater and has fully comply with his commitment it is highly appreciated by all little members during the last three years president macron has always been very supportive of eater and helpful to overcome any major difficulty we may face faith we are very grateful for your always timely decision action when it calls upon you president macron to help including for your participation today so it is my large and sincere pleasure and honor to give you the floor mr president from elysee palace in paris which is precisely where the eater agreement was signed 14 years ago on 21 november 206 mr president we are listening to your introductory speech before we listen to the high diminished from all of the italian members and we would like to warmly thank them as well for their participation and continued strong support foreign [Applause] clearly we are big thank you to to president macron we are now going to turn to a short video for you which will uh recall the contributions of the seven eater members that is making this uh transition possible at eacher and it will explain a bit about machine assembly [Music] eta the world's largest tokamak will demonstrate the scientific and technical feasibility of fusion power 30 meters in diameter and nearly as many in height the eater togamac is a marvel of engineering created from an estimated one million components the size and weight of the major components the tiny tolerances for the assembly of major systems the diversity of manufacturers the tight schedule all of these elements combined to make eta an engineering and logistics challenge of enormous proportions it was in november 2006 when the seven eta partners gave the starting signal for one of the largest international scientific endeavors ever attempted soon after diggers and scrapers moved in to prepare the 180 hectare stage [Music] and here we are today 14 years into realization celebrating the official starts of machine assembly despite the challenges of the covet 19 pandemic we have managed to maintain critical activities on the work sites including the reception of a number of eaters exceptional first-of-a-kind components in march the european domestic agency fusion for energy put the finishing touches on eaters assembly theatre a vast hall for preparing then installing machine components in april the first two toroidal field coils superconducting magnets weighing 360 tons each arrived from italy and japan in may the 1250 tonne cryostat base supplied by india was successfully positioned in the tokamak pit late june the first ring-shaped colloidal field coil procured by europe arrived from its manufacturing site in her faye china russia and the united states are also progressing in the procurement of critical path components for ita finally the first sector of the ita vacuum vessel shipped by south korea has arrived on french soil and will soon be transported along the eta itinerary to the work sites the buildings and infrastructure needed for first plasma are 75 complete and the pace on planet eater is picking up as machine and plant components arrive from the seven eater members the time has come to put the world's largest puzzle together the assembly of the eater machine following the spectacular lowering of the cryostat base the further assembly of the eta tokamak will proceed in a bottom-up fashion machine installation will continue with the lower cryostat components the lower thermal shields and the temporary support structures for colloidal field coil number six a set of spare pre-compression rings are the next in line followed by the central support structure and the 18 gravity supports for eaters huge toroidal field coils thermal shields that will help protect the superconducting coils are attached and finally colloidal field coil number six is lowered into the pit followed by colloidal field coil number five [Music] in order to prepare for the arrival of the pre-assembled vessel sectors an inner support column a work floor and seven radial beams are put in place to stabilize the structure during assembly and welding while the lower cryostat components are being assembled and welded in the tokamak pit two giants are standing in weights in the adjacent assembly hall standing six stories high the purpose-built sub-assembly tools will suspend each of the nine sectors of the vacuum vessel in turn while thermal shield panels and toroidal field coils are rotated into position by the end of this year the first completed sub-assembly will be transferred to the tokemag pit eight others will follow last in line is the 18 meter tall central solenoid the powerful electromagnet will be the last major component to be installed in the machine pit before the cryostat is closed up in all dozens of custom tools will be required to assemble lift and finally maneuver eater's super sized components the tools will have a range of lift capacities 500 tons for the upending tool that will turn vacuum vessel components from horizontal to vertical and 1 500 tonnes for the heavy lift cranes that will carry all major tokamak components into the tokamak pit for assembly and welding the precise alignment of eater's largest and heaviest components to within tolerances of two to three millimeters is essential to the successful operation of the machine assembly sequences have been planned with this in mind and will utilize sophisticated optical metrology techniques at each step of the assembly process the closure of the cryostat by late 2024 will mark the end of the first assembly phase the eta machine will undergo one year of integrated commissioning and testing culminating in first plasma at the end of 2025. beyond its symbolic importance eta's first plasma will be an important trial run for the machine a first occasion to verify the correct alignment of the machine's magnetic fields and the correct functioning of key systems the very first low-power hydrogen plasma lasting only a few milliseconds will be followed by other shots of increasing power and duration this shakedown mode lasting a few months will be followed by a shutdown phase during which key systems for hydrogen and helium plasmas at nominal power are installed inside the vessel such as the blankets the diverter and in-vessel coils these components will be introduced through dedicated port cells in the vacuum vessel requiring a whole host of custom-made tools work platforms and cranes the world will be watching as decades of planning come to fruition and the eater tokamak is assembled from components shipped from all around the world by the seven eater members ita leading the way to thank you very much to the eater assembly team that helped us a great deal in getting that video exactly right we now turn to the global tour where we will hear from each of the seven eter members first speaking on behalf of the host member um european commission president ursula van der leyen was hoping to be with us today but unfortunately was able one was unable to do so due to unforeseen circumstances therefore speaking for the european union we will turn first to mikhail meister the state parliamentary secretary for germany and he will be speaking on behalf of chancellor angela merkel for germany's presidency of the council of the european union director general your excellencies esteemed staff of the ita organization distinguished guests it's a great pleasure to speak you to you today as a representative of the federal republic of germany may i convey warmest regards and well wishes from federal chancellor merkel and from federal research minister karliczyk it is a pity that i am unable to attend today in person and have a look to the progress made at the ita building site but the pictures and the videos that i have seen on the ita website are clear proof of the amazing progress made buildings and facilities which were still in the very early stage of construction during my visit at the beginning of the last year have since developed into splendid structures this is particularly true of the tokamak complex a year ago i guessed into the huge pit where the machine was to be built the recent installation of the heaviest component of theater the 1250 tonne base section of the cryostat and now the assembly of the tokamak means one huge piece of the puzzle will be followed by the next it marks the start of assembly of the inner machine the ita project has reached a critical milestone and this is an occasion which deserves to be celebrated please allow me to take this opportunity to congratulate the entire team of the ita organization and you mr bego in particular for this latest achievement in the construction of ita the ita project involves seven partners besides the european union saya china india japan russia south korea and the united states this fact makes one thing clear without the contributions made by each individual ita partner we would not have reached the milestone we are celebrating today and that is why my congratulations also go to all the ita partners i am well aware that the entire team of the organization is facing enormous challenges due to the kobit 19 pandemic work steps planned have to be resold staff absence have to be compensated restrictions on imports and specific circumstances of the respective iter members are complicating the timeline timely delivery of components the fact that the construction work is continuing despite these hurdles and that measures to minimize risks are being carried out at full speed shows that the project is in good hands we are living in an age in which the search for alternative sustainable sources of energy is of vital importance for the global climate solar energy and wind power are services which we have already taped with success the increasing demand for energy worldwide means we must investigate a broad range of options to secure future energy supply fusion research makes a contribution to long-term application-oriented basic research fusion is a focus of germany energy research the outstanding scientific know-how available in fusion research puts a global responsibility on germany to advance understanding of fusion processes for energy generation purposes this is why germany is supporting the competition of ita according to the planned time and cost schedule germany will also continue to secure adequate funding for the ita project during its eu council presidency because ita is an international project it poses challenges which we can only solve by taking action together after the stage win which we are celebrating today we are very much looking forward to the next big milestone the first plasma until then we will continue to cooperate with fusion for energy to ensure that the european in-kind contributions are made on time and that our financial obligations are met i wish the entire team of ita organization all the best and great success and above all please stay healthy thank you very much to state secretary meister as well as to chancellor merkel we now turn uh give the floor to the european commissioner for energy kadri simpson presidents prime ministers ministers director general distinguished guests greetings i am very happy to be speaking to you all from brussels i'm sorry i cannot be there in person today but i'm looking forward to visiting the site as soon as possible and seeing your great achievement firsthand today we mark an important milestone for the ita project and for fusion energy development 10 years of work and 10 million components will culminate in the world's largest fusion research device we cannot understate the importance of this as a technical achievement almost every individual element of it is at the cutting edge of its field and i'm looking forward to seeing these extraordinary components combined to make something even greater than the sum of its parts but today we celebrate more than just a technical milestone i would like to highlight three things in particular first the strength of international collaboration this work has benefited from the global collaboration between the ita members and i want to thank our partners from china india japan korea russia and the united states for making this journey with the european union without your participation and contribution we would not be here today i would also like to thank the european domestic agency and fusion for energy as well as all the european companies and research organizations each of you have worked tirelessly to deliver the european contribution to the ether project reaching today's milestone would not have been possible without all parties working towards a common goal second it represents the determination of the eu in the fight against climate change this commission has adopted the european green deal as its roadmap to climate neutrality by 2050. in that light the clean energy transition is both an ethical necessity and an economic opportunity it turned perfectly demonstrates this duality it is a major investment in our high-tech industries and clean energy sources for the future finally i would like to talk about the importance of continuing to support projects like these in challenging times the copic 19 pandemic has forced us all to readjust our priorities europe is no exception the european commission has revised its proposal for its long-term budget and proposed the next generation eu to tackle our recovery the journey might change but our end goal remains the same and so our commitment to projects like it cannot favor it is not only a milestone on the path of diffusion power but also a valuable tool for investment and development of our industries this is why the european union will will maintain its support twitter over the next seven years to finish i want to thank all of you for your strong willingness to make a success of it and what the success it has become i also want to give special thanks to the representative of industry and the research community assembled we have learned so much from you you are the beating heart of victor and its success depends on your vision creativity and hard work of course challenges still lie ahead of us from this point on our work becomes even more delicate and complex but month after month as a result of your work plans are becoming reality and fusion research will soon lead to fusion energy we are on the right track so let's celebrate our successes by looking forward to those to come thank you and enjoy today's event thank you commissioner simpson we will now hear statements from each of the other six eater members presented according to our custom in alphabetical order so first for china we will hear a statement by president xi jinping the president of the people's republic of china read on his behalf by the minister of science and technology wang jiegang so engineer foreign foreign foreign m go thank you so much minister wang and of course we are deeply honored for uh having the statement by president xi please now give your attention to mr jahwed ashraf the indian ambassador to france and monaco who will present a statement from the prime minister of the republic of india narendra modi thank you it is my honor and privilege to deliver a message on behalf of prime minister of india sri narayana modi the director general of ita members of eater distinguished members of the scientific community of many nations ladies and gentlemen namaskar my warm greetings to you on this historic occasion today we are celebrating the beginning of the eater assembly activities it is an important milestone in the progress of the eater project we have reached it after an extraordinary journey of many years of commitment dedication and hard work by scientists engineers and technicians they have successfully developed and fabricated a wide range of entirely new components that represent design innovation and engineering of great complexity and precision they have done this while adhering to schedules and timelines indeed the eater organization deserves special appreciation for maintaining its schedule of activities in recent months despite the disruptions and restrictions of the ongoing pandemic india is proud to be part of a global enterprise that is at the frontier of science and engineering indian scientists have made valuable contribution to the development and fabrication of the cryostat the cooling system the cryo distribution system and several kilometers of cryolines they remain involved in many other aspects of the project they have demonstrated india's capabilities for design and manufacture at the most advanced levels equally our institutions scientists and engineers have benefited enormously from collaborating with their peers from around the world eater is a project of an extraordinary vision and ambition and of unparalleled scale and complexity by seeking to simulate the sun's energy production on earth it is attempting a task of cosmic proportions it is as much a testimony of a relentless human pursuit of knowledge as it is of our enduring quest to use science for the welfare of humanity in this case as an abundant clean and sustainable source of energy the project is also very special because it involves international collaboration at an unprecedented level this shared endeavor for a common good is a perfect symbol of the age-old indian belief that means the entire world is one family today's event is an important step towards a better tomorrow for mankind and on behalf of 1.3 billion indians i wish the eater project all success thank you thank you ambassador ashraf and of course prime minister modi now we will give the floor to hagiru hagiyoda the japanese minister of education culture sports science and technology who will present a statement by the prime minister of japan shinzo abe thank you minister hagudha and prime minister abe next we turn to the republic of korea where we'll we will hear from president moon jae-in chongqing foreign yes [Music] foreign foreign foreign thank you so much president moon we are deeply honored by your presence and participation we now turn to alexei likachev the director general of the state atomic energy corporation rosatom presenting on behalf of vladimir putin the president of the russian federation rusia thank you director general lee khachev and in particular president putin now for the last stop on our global tour we will turn to the secretary of energy of the united states of america dan bruyette thank you it's a pleasure and honor to join you for such an important event taking place during extraordinary times this year has been full of challenges for all of us so i appreciate the opportunity to be with you in celebrating the significant milestone for the eater project and the future of energy the start of machine assembly means that site preparations have concluded and that the project is now receiving components from eater members around the world as a consequence we can now begin to look forward to first plasma and the future beyond as the united states secretary of energy i'm responsible for the stewardship of 17 national laboratories which are each spearheading basic and applied research projects in areas ranging from clean energy to material science to exascale and quantum computing projects with incredible impact and world-changing potential i'm also responsible for our nation's fusion energy efforts which hold the promise of providing an economical nearly unlimited and clean form of energy for future generations eater plans to create hold and control the hottest material on earth within some of the coldest materials and to use that heat to generate electricity it's an incredible engineering achievement to consider and first of a kind components that will make up the eater machine are being fabricated to exacting tolerances around the world and shipped to the assembly for assembly at the site this new stage has been made possible through decades of collaborative research and engineering infusion and plasma physics at government laboratories universities and companies all around the world it's a profound story of human endeavor and the best is yet to come i'm proud of the significant work at our national laboratories to support this effort including projects at oak ridge princeton and savannah river and i'm equally proud of the participation of many u.s companies to cite just one example a company from california is preparing to ship the first of seven massive superconducting magnets that will comprise the eater central solenoid the production of these magnets is the result of close collaboration amongst the united states japan and the eater organization and many other components are being fabricated at u.s companies and laboratories for eventual delivery and incorporation into the reactor the eater effort has also helped to renew enthusiasm and optimism about the commercial promise of fusion energy several startup companies across north america have been established in recent years to explore potential new concepts for fusion energy and we've engaged with a number of them in the hope of accelerating progress and reducing costs toward commercial applications in closing i'd like to recognize the hard work and the dedication of thousands of eater staff and contractors at the site and the many thousands more among the eater members engaged in fulfilling the promise of fusion energy while many are responsible for the conception design and progress on the project but so far all of the participating nations owe a special debt of gratitude to director general bego for his dedication and expert stewardship of the project over the past five years we in the united states are hopeful about a bright fusion for fusion energy and we look forward to the assembly of the reactor and to the promise of what we will learn soon from the testing after first plasma good luck to the team in this critical next step of assembly thank you again let's go to work let's change the world thank you secretary bruyette this brings to a conclusion our global tour i would ask that all of you would perhaps welcome again back to the podium to conclude our ceremony director general bernard bego thanks again levan it has been very rewarding to listen to this declaration by all the seven inter members on behalf of all the little community i would like to express our deepest and more sincere gratitude for this wonderful statement of support from the head of state ministers and other officials today representing all the seven eater members this support from the highest level of it members government is inspiring to know that we are all working towards the same goal for a future forward by fusion energy will be constant source of encouragement as we go forward into machine assembly and eater i would like to conclude our celebration today by recognizing as well the essential nature of another commitment i am speaking of the global eater workforce as in any other large human enterprise nothing is possible without highly skilled and motivated staff who execute the work on scope quality and schedule the eater people are the best asset for eater's success could i ask three people to join me on the stage laura bertolo from europe the lead contract engineers in in the assembling hall asho sharma from india tokamak instrumentation engineers and lee zuwang from china an engineer working on tokamak assembly thank you very much for joining me here in provence around the world more than ten thousand people like them are working together to make it a reality we could not do it without each of one view those who design and manufacture the component those who transport them over land and sea to the litter site those who installed each piece with precision in his proper place divorce in support role in finance and legal work and once we prepare the operation unfortunately we cannot have all of you with us today in person so i have asked free the three of you to join me on this stage to represent all the workers on our global one eater team to say how grateful we are for your hard work dedication and professional excellence i have me a special crafted disc this one this disc is a little bit special it is made of synthetic saphir we refer it as a nanoform disk because it can be inscribed with thousands of pages of material at nanoscale which can be viewed with a microscope and it will be last for thousands of years fully preserved whatever adverse condition it may face as a small token of your gratitude to the little workforce and to commemorate our celebration today we will inscribe your name and photos of such a disc plus the transcript of the statement given today in our many heater language with additional photographic image this disc will be attached to the eater tokamak building to serve as an enduring record for those who will retrieve it when eater has achieved his purpose and completed his mission and possibly to be transferred to the first fusion power plant in the world to deliver electricity on the grid thank you very much for your contribution and so we will provide this inscription but before leaving i would like to offer you each of them this piece of the super conducting material the one which will be okay on the tokamak building with the magnetic coils thank you so much as we conclude our ceremony we leave you with a musical performance by the eater band you may recognize the peace which we will find appropriate as we pursue the energy of the stars for peaceful purpose these musicians are either scientists engineers and other staff they come from many different background for the past few months during the pandemic they have been largely isolated for each other yet each one has contributed steadily centrally working someone's little worksite each one has recorded their individual track of music which we have synchronized to make a single work of harmony like the seven liter members and eater organization we work together in the most integrated way even if they are distributed all over the world so thank you so much for all being with us today and let's listen to the music [Music] my [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thanks a lot to all of you who have joined us during this celebration and definitively we are committed to assemble the takamak equipment and be successful as everybody expected thanks a lot boom [Music] um [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] welcome to the third segment of our celebration today first we had a worksite tour at 10 am friends time and then we had the the formal ceremony with the statements we are now going to our press conference and so i would like to give just a few explanations before those of you here or those of you joining us remotely will offer questions to dr ego first of all for those journalists who are joining us here if you would like to speak directly to the microphone that is at the front the only thing that we ask you is because we respect covet 19 please don't touch the microphone if you just speak close to it we will be able to hear you so journalists who want to do that you're welcome in addition to the many journalists around the world that have been accredited to join us on our uh special platform for journalists please send your questions whenever you like and um as many as we can we will try to consolidate and to ask dr bego then in addition if for some reason there are too many and we run longer than an hour just send the questions in writing to any of the individuals who were named on the press release as context and we will get back to you as soon as possible first question dr bigo is coming from um anita valmont and i should ask for those of you coming to the microphone or submitting questions if you can tell me the name of your news organization that would also be helpful so first question what is meant with the announcement that in december 2025 first plasma shall be launched what plasma will this be is it only created with normal hydrogen atoms or already self-heating plasma able to produce more energy than the reactor consumes the first plasma in 2025 indeed will be just with standard hydrogen to check that all the different piece of the tokamak building of the tokamak okay installation has been properly assembled it will not produce energy it's just the first step to check that everything has been according to expectation after that we will install the system to collect the energy okay as you know the helium nuclei as well as the neutron will okay escape from the plasma and be collected by the wall and we need to install this system furthermore we will install also some extra heating in order to be able to reach a temperature of 150 million degrees and last but not the least we need to recycle the fuel and so we will have what we call a trisham plant so it's still a long journey to go but it is needed in order to secure the performance of this very complex first of a kind installation thank you next question actually asked by a number of journalists is can you describe from a practical standpoint how you have managed to accomplish so much project progress during the covet 19 pandemic and can you give any specific illustrations either from each other countries or from the eater organization where you experienced and dealt with particular challenges indeed we are lucky enough to have it members spread over all the planet so when we experience the cold covey 19 eat in china and we feel that it could come to europe and france we have decided to anticipate the kobe 19 impact and we set up our organization with most of the teleworking we also imposed to all the workers on the ether side to wear masks we were fortunate again that we received early enough before the pandemic some gift from china and korea in order that we could provide the mask to a worker on the work side and last but not the least we rely on the high motivation of all the item members each of them were fully aware that it is quite easy to stop a project like this you just order stop and everybody stop but to restart it would be a nightmare so is why we have decided to have what we call a continuity plan preserving the critical activities we could not stop including to receive some of the components which were already loaded shipped and going on on the sea so is what i call the heater miracle okay we have been fortinet again enough to be able to go on continuing okc activities without any infection within the ether community thank you and can you give any specific examples about specific challenges technical challenges otherwise that that arose during the last say six months many many challenges that we say every day we have challenges when you see the size for example of the cryostat the cryostat base the lower cylinder surplus cylinder they have to be manufactured with a very high precision and they have to be leak-proof and to be frank with you for example we have checked that it was so and there was one part which was not complying with the specification and so we have to grind it again and to redo it is a price to pay for high quality so based on this experience we have been able now to have perfect product to be installed once they will be installed in the tokamak we could not reduce them we could not repair them they have to be perfect before they come into the plasma the tokamak installation for plasma i could speak also some others okay for example with the with the coils as i explained we need to a precision which is a below millimeter between the surface of the coils and the surface of the casing and it was not easy to act to get it and so we have to work very hard and i am pleased that we comply with this specification also thank you could you repeat which nations are involved in the assembly of the project and how are scientists from nations who currently experience acute tensions like the us and china or china and india how are they working together and have diplomatic issues slowed the project or risk derailing it thank you the eater project is banned on an agreement it has been decided that the seven eater members will procure in kind the component the responsibility of is assembling an installation is a heater organization but we need to rely on the experience of the staff of the engineers of the workers which are many factors with components so is why we work as an integrated team under the responsibility and leadership of the ita organization for the assembly and we are very pleased to work with many companies coming from all over the world including for example china is responsible for the positioning of the of the cryostat and many other countries are participating thank you there's a question from alexander a special reporter with the tas newswire in the russian federation he says there's been a lot of progress technically with regard to plasma confinement fuel injection and other processes that directly control the efficiency of the thermonuclear reaction and can improve eater success chances is there a cut off for such proposals to be implemented and if there is how and when do you decide how the first plasma will be achieved as you know this project is a research project you never stop the research progress okay the scientists are always very creative imaginative gaining okay experience moving forward to a better understanding and control in mastering the physical phenomena so from my point of view the ether project will go on and in parallel many many progress will be done worldwide in the many labs as well of other installation the big difference is they are not the proper size in order to have what we call a burning plasma a self-sustained plasma and is why we are ready to integrate all this progress in our project in such a way that we could demonstrate their okay uh pertinence in order to be able to provide fusion energy in the best condition when it will be ready to start thank you a question related to cost what do you consider the cost in euros or dollars of the total eater project and are there also returns on investment in terms of economic benefit even before we receive full fusion power clearly this question of cost is a very often asked question and it is very difficult to answer why because as i explained a few minutes ago a larger part of the construction is depending on the in-kind contribution of the several members and everybody could understand that the workforce okay a price in in california is not exactly the same as in mumbai okay each country has its own okay economics capacity and procedures so the only things i could do i have i have a a matrix the matrix is the cost for the european union as you know the okay cost for european union is okay fully controlled by the european parliament and i know that the european union is contributing 45 okay of the construction phase and so it's quite easy by comparison with the cost if it would have been okay fully construct and built and assemble in europe what would be the cost and when we compare to the cost dedicated only to eater okay not speaking the i'll say running cost of the fusion for energy and other project fusion of energy as in charge the cost is of the order of 20 billion euro value 2015 when i came in thank you we see often in the news reports on big achievements by smaller projects some things like tokamak energy or like the mit project how does eacher view those projects and are they working together with you for the future of fusion i see all this uh smallest project as you name it with a very positive okay attitude from my point of view it's already a success for eater to have stimulated this new project in such a way demonstrate that more and more people feel that hydrogen fusion could be a real option for the future second as i have said we have to decide okay the design of this machine we decided by 2007 we know we have to build it we could not change the design every day so we will go until the end we will design integrating progress if it is possible but some progress will not be so it's good that other devices much smaller which from my point of view could not achieve the goal of ether which is a sustained plasma burning plasma producing 10 times eat the heat we are injecting in the plasma i don't believe they could achieve that but so they are complementary of our action and we are very pleased to work with them as often as it is possible we are not in a competition we are really from my point of view complementary thank you a somewhat related question do you expect an actual fusion power plant to be a scaled-up eater reactor or is it some kind of hybrid that you would expect with other technologies that may emerge such as spherical tokamaks our plan is once we have completed our mission to demonstrate the feasibility viability and economic competitiveness of hydrogen fusion that we will replicate okay these type of devices which looks the most promising with a scaling up okay maybe twice as large as this one to be able to provide okay uh prower to the grid and but uh as you said there is alternate okay devices turkamax spherical as you said for example which could be good also i don't want to eliminate any of them just let's uh have a fair competition and see what is the best and maybe we could enrich each other thank you we see quite often by climate change experts statements that we need to go to 100 renewables also that we need to move away from centralized production of energy and more toward decentralized how do you view that uh idea you know i am a physicist i am a chemist indeed and i trust okay the physics physical phenomena when we are a population of nearly 8 billion okay soon 10 billion with a very large urbanization when we have highly concentrated means of production you need continuity and massive production of power and renewable energy by the way all come from the sun okay radiation okay on earth from the sun energy flux they have two limitations the largest limitation from my point of view is there okay diffuseness okay you collect only a limited flux of energy by square meter and we could not change that sun has been working this way for five billion of years and it will go on five billion more so it is an input data flux on solar earth of solar on earth and so if you want to power 10 billion of inhabitants mainly living in cities 80 percent of the world population is now living in city if we want to have large okay production means continuity and massive production is needed whatever the progress on storage i do believe that the order of energy we need whatever the saving will not work i don't say that okay renewable energy has not to be considered they have to be considered as much as we can and very large project has been made indeed in the very few decades but from my point of view it is impossible to expect that you have 100 of your renewable energies okay maybe just a small house maybe but not at the size of humankind so is why we need a complement source of energy which will fit uh and okay adjust with the weak point of the renewable energies which is massive and continuity and you could complement which means that if you have a need you could increase your power production if you don't it's a very nice solar day as it is today in province we have a lot of wind okay you could shut down the fusion power and start it again immediately when the clouds will come in so it's very good that we have these two complementary technologies thank you about five years ago there was a lot of skepticism about the possibility of eaters succeeding how did you turn the project around it's not myself we have turned the project around it is little members you know when i was requested to consider to take this responsibility and indeed i was not at all prepared to do that i say sorry i am not a miracle man but just i know the recipe in order to be successful and so if the eater members agreed to follow the rules i propose to you to them for their the governance of the project would mean first clear decision process i feel sorry to say i have requests that the heater organization director general is fully empowered to take decision clearly it's mean to okay analyze okay the pros and cons of any decision to consult okay to have large discussion but when comes a time for decision please take decision second we have seven little members seven domestic agencies before we were working more in parallel in some silo i say it could not work we have to work in the most integrated way as a one eater team and last but not least we have to be realistic okay the schedule to do to deliver this project initially was much too enthusiastic okay we come in okay i consult a lot of industry i consult a lot of experts and we come with a forum review and i present to the little members my conclusion my conclusion was not enthusiastic for them before it was filled that uh ether first plasma will be 2020 and the full fusion program was 2025 and i explained it was physically impossible they have to accept and it was very okay challenging to have a schedule which will be first plasma by 2025 and full fusion power through what we call a stage approach with a sequence of a complement installation of component and okay some experiment for the scientists by 2024 by 2035. so i don't know if it will succeed we work hard and i am pleased to say since 2015 we are on track we have been able to deliver according to your plan and schedule with high quality is not my responsibility it is the responsibility of the ether members and all the staff in my role i am just as i said a facilitator i don't prevent the other to work well thank you a question from nate gronewold at e d news after first plasma is achieved and experimented with in 2025 we see that it will be followed by a quote shutdown phase what is the purpose of that and the next steps first plasma as i explained the main component of the tokamak the vacuum vessel okay leak proof okay huge okay toroidal vessel more than one thousand okay 500 okay cubic meter the 18 vertical coils what we call the okay toridol calls the six okay vertical one the central solenoid all the cryogenic plants all the different systems will be installed and if it works it will be a major landmark but we know in order to complete our mission we need some more equipment we don't want to put this equipment immediately because if for example we face a leak and we have to make some repair okay we will have to disassemble what we have assembled okay without any benefit so the next step will be nearing nearly during two years to install what we call the first wall the panel which will collect the energy coming from the neutrons when they will be hit and is why after this installation with robots you have to understand that each of this path is weighting more than 4.5 tons and only the robots could install them and there is 440 of these styles okay we will be able to offer to the scientists the possibility to start okay with a plasma which will deliver some energy but still we will need some extra eating that's why after 18 months okay fully dedicated to the physics experiment we will take over okay the machine and okay install the extra eating and a second okay campaign of experiment will go before we finally install the recycling plants for the fuels thank you with the additional challenges from the coronavirus outbreak will it be necessary to extend the eater construction schedule and or ask members for extra resources this is from dan cleary at science magazine clearly the pandemic has impacted the schedule initial schedule you you know that for example in some countries for example italy we have okay the workshop which has been stopped for nearly two months also there is a quite a large disruption in the supply chain also limitation in the capacity of some of our expert engineers coming from a remote country to france but i see an extraordinary motivation to try to recover this impact i have been requested by the litter council to assess the impact of this coven 19 okay shot down and by the end of september i will okay report on this assessment and i could say you more you listen come as me by all the higher dignitaries of the italian members they are willing to have first plasma as soon as possible so we will try our best in order to keep with our commitment but again okay we have to be modest and humble if it is physically impossible whatever the price you will pay we will have to accept it will be really okay a few few months okay i don't believe it will be a major step back because maybe we could recover after that we have a question here i don't have a name but it is i assume from china could you uh describe in particular the role of china as an eater member and uh how do you think china is doing as a partner china is a major partner they joined the little project indeed okay in 203 as you know and they learn very rapidly okay on fusion it's very impressive for me they procure a lot of equipment they are very reactive so for me just uh okay a very good example of the strong commitment of the italian members i am pleased to see that many of my chinese colleagues demonstrate high skill and motivation and so i wish that they stay as such up to the very end so thanks to china as i will say thanks to all the six other members we have a historical question could you tell us how it was that eater was chosen to be placed in cataract in france rather than somewhere else it's a difficult question even if it is public indeed a fusion has always been something important for france you have to remember that for example okay the jet has been under the leadership of french engineers as well as the beginning of the peter project when it starts in san diego in the u.s naka in japan and garching in germany in europe and so there were a strong motivation of the scientists to have heater in europe and if possible either nearby the ca center atomic energy commission okay where you have a super conducting magnet okay tokamak which was working since the 1980s so the french scientists push for that second france and europe was considered by the seven italy members as a well-balanced position okay all of them trust that france could be serious about nuclear safety okay engineering capacity uh welcoming of the different countries and so it was a negotiation and discussion and france has been chosen and uh i am okay please and proud that this has been decided and as you know france is doing everything they can in order to accommodate and last but not the least and i guess my ether colleague will say province is not the worst place to be in the world to make science okay i will not comment more but i do believe that worldwide it is well known that provence is a very okay pleasant place to be the last question that i have unless we get more is um we read that we understand that fusion power is primarily expected to produce electricity and that electricity currently represents only 20 percent of global energy consumption when you look toward the future how do you see the rest of the 80 being made up or can you use fusion for other applications as you see okay fusion first produce heat okay and so we could imagine that we will use the heat directly why not it's happened in many countries where you have okay a network for it transportation and you could heat okay the cities and so second i do believe that the electricity will take over many other energy consumption now for example you know many cars are just running with gasoline we see more and more cars running with electricity with power we do believe it is a future for transportation i see very recently a plane with only electricity power so from my point of view if we want to have a clean energy world okay environmentally respectful we will use more and more electricity thank you that concludes unless we have anyone here i think many of you have interviews already lined up with dr b go this uh this afternoon uh for those of you who have not already interviewed so this brings our entire press conference as well as the overall uh three phases of our start of assembly celebration to a close thank you to all of you here who have joined us thank you thank you to all of you who have joined us from around the world we invite you to continue to follow our progress as we work to make fusion energy the energy of the future thank you thanks a lot thank you lydan [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so

Channel: iterorganization

Views: 226,559

Rating: 4.9025531 out of 5

Keywords: ITER, Hydrogen Fusion, Nuclear Fusion

Id: 2-7GyVLKE6A

Length: 190min 25sec (11425 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 28 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/epitomizer_]

Biggest research project in the world and holder of many records, including the major temperature gradient in the known universe between the inside of the reactor and the coils holding the plasma in place.

[u/vertigo_effect]

I remember reading about this project in the 90s as a kid. It’s amazing how long it’s taken to get to this point. Can’t wait to see this project finally completed and ya being one step closer to a breakthrough!

[u/ChaoticLlama]

Three constants in the universe: death, taxes, and the number of years away we are from viable nuclear fusion. Though here's to hoping!

[u/EntropyKC]

I want to work there but no luck on applications so far (to UK contributor) because I don't have enough experience :(

[u/pabra]

Soundtrack from Star Wars? Anthem of the rebellion? Is this a hint?

[u/skydivingdutch]

Haha, so this is a 20 year YouTube video?

[u/pdessert]

If you find this interesting, then you might also like the documentary called “Let there be light”. It is about various fusion projects and they go into some detail about ITER. It is a few years old now and we have made a lot of progress since it came out, but still worth a watch. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt6184774/

[u/United-Ostrich]

I think people think fusion is hard because we’re trying to replicate the sun inside of a building. But that’s not really it at all. Only an infinitesimal amount of hydrogen atoms actually get fused in the sun in any kind of time scale, or else the sun would’ve just burned up rapidly. Any hydrogen atom has well under a one in a billion chance of getting fused in any given year.

With a fusion reactor we’re actually trying to put in hydrogen as fuel and fuse that small amount of hydrogen, so it requires vastly more excitement than inside our sun. It’s nuts.

[u/[deleted]]

Let's go fusion whoop whoop! 🙃