Opinion & analysis
Russia will help build the worlds first thermonuclear
reactor
13:41 | 03/ 01/ 2007
Print version
MOSCOW. (Yury Zaitsev for RIA Novosti) - On November 21, 2006,
Russia, South Korea, China, Japan, India, the European Union and
the United States signed an agreement on building the world's first
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).
The overall cost of the project is 13 billion Euros. The "small
Sun" (as the reactor is referred to) will be sited in Cadarache
near Marseilles. Russia will finance part of the project and
contribute its technologies and know-how.
Unlike conventional nuclear power plant reactors utilizing the
nuclear radioactive decay principle, i.e. fission of heavy
elements, the ITER unit generates power through thermonuclear
fusion, that is, when two light atomic nuclei fuse together to form
heavier ones.
Scientists want to imitate physical processes inside the Sun and to
use them for building commercial power units.
Chemically inert helium is created through the fusion of hydrogen
isotopes -deuterium and tritium - inside the Sun. This unique
process generates hundreds of times more energy than
uranium-powered nuclear reactors.
The Earth has a virtually unlimited amount of fuel for future
thermonuclear reactors. Both deuterium and tritium can be obtained
from water; this process is much simpler, safer and cheaper than
the conventional nuclear fuel cycle. Moreover, "clean"
thermonuclear reactors will not damage the environment even in case
of major accidents and can therefore be built in densely populated
areas.
The principles of thermonuclear fusion were formulated over 50
years ago. However, scientists faced enormous problems as they
tried to ignite and control thermonuclear plasma. Lev Artsimovich,
member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said thermonuclear
fusion had become the most formidable science and engineering
challenge of the 20th century.
But at that time scientists failed to build a thermonuclear
reactor, and interest in this problem gradually began to wane after
a period of unsuccessful attempts.
In the last decades works on this problem have resumed all over the
world and international cooperation in this sphere has grown
stronger because it is very important to harness controlled
thermonuclear fusion.
Work on the first experimental TOKAMAK (Toroidal Chamber in
Magnetic Coils) reactor began in 1988 on the Soviet Union's
initiative.
The reactor's basic principle of operation is as follows. A
powerful electric current flows through toroidal-chamber plasma,
and its magnetic field merges with that of the toroidal solenoid to
create the required magnetic field needed to maintain a
well-balanced and insulated plasma configuration.
The Soviet Union and later Russia, the United States, the EU and
Japan established an agency that promptly designed the TOKAMAK
reactor. This project largely owed its success to Russian research
involving pre-nuclear TOKAMAK reactors, which studied related
problems and were used to test different engineering solutions,
namely, large-scale superconducting magnetic systems and powerful
high-frequency units for creating and maintaining stable reactor
plasma.
Russia's Federal Nuclear Power Agency (Rosatom) is proud to say
that Russian scientists were the first to develop TOKAMAK systems
for the ITER project.
The Cadarache reactor is expected to prove that thermonuclear power
plants are feasible. If successful, it will serve as a basis for
more powerful and advanced units for completely solving mankind's
energy problems. However, this goal cannot be achieved overnight.
Vladimir Fortov, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said
thermonuclear power will be harnessed completely only by
2040.
Yevgeny Velikhov, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and
President of the Kurchatov Institute Russian Research Center, said
Japan, which faces huge energy shortages and which has no
hydrocarbon deposits, would build the first commercial
thermonuclear power plant in 2030. "We hope that thermonuclear
fusion will account for a considerable share of global energy
output by the middle of the 21st century," Velikhov said.
Russia's involvement in the ITER project is the only chance to
preserve its potential in the most advanced science-and-engineering
spheres. Moscow has completely fulfilled its R&D commitments.
Although the project's technical aspects have been implemented,
scientists will continue to study the physics of thermonuclear
plasma for a long time to come.
An ad hoc commission comprising EU government advisers and many
authoritative international experts said the controlled
thermonuclear fusion project is proceeding too slowly against the
backdrop of major energy shortages facing humankind, and all the
countries involved must step up joint efforts in this sphere.
Yury Zaitsev is an expert at the Russian Academy of Engineering
Sciences.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and
may not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial
board.