ITER chief Bernard Bigot said the experimental fusion reactor under construction in Cadarache, France, would not see the first test of its super-heated plasma before 2025 and its first full-power fusion not before 2035.
Construction has already begun in southern France on ITER, a huge international research reactor that uses a strong electric current to trap plasma inside a doughnut-shaped device long enough for fusion to take place. The device, known as a tokamak, was conceived by Soviet physicists in the 1950s and is considered fairly easy to build, but extremely difficult to operate.
The team in Greifswald, a port city on Germany's Baltic coast, is focused on a rival technology invented by the American physicist Lyman Spitzer in 1950. Called a stellarator, the device has the same doughnut shape as a tokamak but uses a complicated system of magnetic coils instead of a current to achieve the same result.
Russia and Italy announced on Monday that they will collaborate to build a new tokamak fusion reactor called Ignitor. Following talks between Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, other ministers signed a memorandum of understanding to work together on building the Italian-designed device on Russian territory.
The reactor is the brainchild of Bruno Coppi of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who worked on MIT's Alcator tokamaks from the 1970s until the present day.
Faced with ballooning costs and growing delays, ITER's seven partners are likely to build only a skeletal version of the device at first. The project's governing council said last June that the machine should turn on in 2018; the stripped-down version could allow that to happen (see Nature 453, 829; 2008). But the first experiments capable of validating fusion for power would not come until the end of 2025, five years later than the date set when the ITER agreement was signed in 2006.
The new scheme, known as 'Scenario 1' to ITER insiders, will be discussed on 17–18 June in Mito, Japan, at a council meeting that will include representatives from all seven members: the European Union (EU), Japan, South Korea, Russia, the United States, China and India. It is expected to be approved at a council meeting in November.
Construction has not even begun on the ITER fusion reactor, which has been beset by political wrangling since its inception. Now its seven international backers are to be told they will have to come up with an extra €1.2 billion–1.6 billion (US$1.9 billion–2.5 billion) on top of its current €5-billion construction budget if the project is to be realized.
A report from a group of scientific advisers says the additional money is needed for critical design changes and for coordinating between the participant nations. And the experiment, already delayed, will not be completed until anywhere from one to three years after its current 2018 due date.
Sauthoff reiterated Orbach's concern that funding cuts by Congress and other, previous snubs have damaged U.S. credibility as a reliable science partner on the world stage.
APS Urges Congress and White House to Revisit Fiscal Year 2008 Science Funding in January
Current legislation is disastrous for U.S. physical sciences and technology enterprise.
(Press release issued 4:45 pm, December 19, 2007)
The American Physical Society, representing more than 46,000 physicists in universities, industry and national laboratories, regards the fiscal year 2008 omnibus spending bill as extraordinarily damaging to the nation's science and technology enterprise. The bill fails to fund appropriately the research and education programs authorized in the bipartisan America COMPETES Act, which President Bush signed into law only four months ago. The consequential layoffs of scientists and engineers throughout the nation will discourage American youth from pursuing these fields, just as the country needs their participation to sustain economic growth and national security.
While other nations are aggressively challenging American leadership in physical sciences and technology, the omnibus bill sets our country on the wrong course. It fails to provide the necessary resources for long- term research in the physical sciences and engineering. It fails to provide the requisite resources for developing new cutting-edge scientific laboratories and even for operating existing national user facilities. It fails to provide adequate funding for university- based research that is so essential for educating the next generation of scientists and engineers. It also fails to provide the appropriate incentives for American industry to innovate at an accelerated pace.
Furthermore, as we as a nation strive to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, mitigate global warming and put a lid on escalating energy costs, the omnibus bill abandons the long- term transformational research that is necessary to achieve all these essential goals. The bill is bad for our energy future and economic future.
Finally, apart from its failings on global competitiveness and energy, the omnibus legislation also places at grave risk committed U.S. participation in two large international scientific collaborations. Just one year ago, the United States made a major commitment to the construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). Today, Congress has pulled the plug. In so doing, it critically damages American credibility as a reliable scientific partner throughout the world and compromises the nation's standing as a host of future international scientific facilities. Congress has also cut the lifeline of the International Linear Collider, which represents the future of American high- energy physics. This action sends a strong message to the world: The U.S. is prepared to jettison support for one of our flagship areas of science that probes fundamental laws of the universe.
The APS notes with some dismay that had Congress applied the same discipline to earmarking as it did last year, the damage to the science and technology enterprise could have been avoided.
For these reasons, the American Physical Society strongly urges Congress and the White House to revisit Fiscal Year 2008 science funding after Congress convenes in January with an eye to reflecting better the nation's long term needs and obligations.
