ITER

Subject: Science and tech

Context:

India has completed its 50% contribution to ITER in France

Concept:

ITER is one of the most ambitious energy projects in the world today.
In southern France, 35 nations are collaborating to build the world’s largest tokamak, a magnetic fusion device that has been designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy based on the same principle that powers our Sun and stars.
The ITER Members China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United Stateshave combined resources to conquer one of the greatest frontiers in science. As signatories to the ITER Agreement, concluded in 2006, the seven Members will share of the cost of project construction, operation and decommissioning. They also share the experimental results and any intellectual property generated by the fabrication, construction and operation phases.

ITER-India

ITER-India is a special project under Institute for Plasma Research.
It is governed by the Empowered Board, which is chaired by the Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE).
India became a full seventh partner of ITER in December 2005.
ITER-India, Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), located in Gandhinagar, western India, is the Indian Domestic Agency to design, build and deliver the Indian in-kind contribution to ITER

What is fusion?

Fusion is the energy source of the Sun and stars.
In the tremendous heat and gravity at the core of these stellar bodies, hydrogen nuclei collide, fuse into heavier helium atoms and release tremendous amounts of energy in the process.
Twentieth-century fusion science identified the most efficient fusion reaction in the laboratory setting to be the reaction between two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium (D) and tritium (T). The DT fusion reaction produces the highest energy gain at the “lowest” temperatures.