Science Questions

How will ITER work?

The techniques you’re talking about in terms of using lasers to ignite and sustain fusion – is that what’s going to happen in ITER? Martin

Kate - ITER as Steve pointed out is a completely different device. It’s a big magnetic donut and it confines plasma for a length of time whereas the thing about lasers is the Reactor would be slightly different. You have to inject these fuel pellets and compress them. In order to support a 4GW reactor you’d have to do that four times a second. The designs of the two system s are very different. That’s not to say we don’t have overlap and they’re not complementary. They are, we have some of the same technology challenges.

October 2008