Brussels, 05 Jul 2005
European Commissioner for Science and Research, Janez Potocnik visited the site in France chosen to host the international fusion research facility ITER on 3 July.
In the company of representatives of the French government and the European fusion research community, he saluted the cooperation among European fusion players that had made this positive outcome possible.
'ITER is not just a large international research project but has great importance for this region, for the EU and for the whole world,' said the Commissioner during his visit. 'We've seen with our visit to Tore-Supra today how far we've come already in fusion research. I am optimistic that ITER will allow us to go even further down the road to safe, clean, abundant energy.'
Cadarache, situated near Marseille in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region, currently hosts the CEA Cadarache research installation. The facility is used for research in the nuclear fission sector, in particular for looking at how to make it more economic, more efficient and safer, and how to reduce waste and propose solutions for waste treatment in the long term.
Research into solar energy and microbiology is also undertaken, looking at possibilities for biological solutions to pollution. Moreover, Cadarache currently hosts Tore-Supra, one of the existing centres for fusion research.
The construction of ITER will benefit greatly from the technical, scientific and logistics environment already in existence in the Cadarache centre.
The objective of ITER is to demonstrate the scientific feasibility of fusion, with extended controlled burn and, marginally, ignition, for a duration sufficient to achieve stationary conditions on all time-scale characteristics of plasma processes and plasma-wall interactions. To do so the installation will produce 500 MW of fusion power during pulses of at least 400 seconds. The facility will also demonstrate key fusion technologies.
For further information, please consult the following web address: http://www.itercad.org/index.html
CORDIS RTD-NEWS / © European Communities
Item source: http:///dbs.cordis.lu/cgi-bin/srchidadb?C ALLER=NHP_EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN= EN_RCN_ID:24093
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