Nuclear Technology Review 2011 - IAEA

B.2. Fusion
The baseline design features for the International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor (ITER) device and facility were agreed to by all parties at
the extraordinary ITER Council meeting in July 2010. Since then, ITER has
officially moved from the design review phase to the construction phase.
According to an updated schedule, first plasma will be achieved in November
2019 and deuterium-tritium operation will start by March 2027, ultimately taking
ITER to 500 MW output power.
Substantial progress has been made at the National Ignition Facility (NIF)
at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA, since its dedication in
May 2009. A 1 MJ pulse was achieved in January 2010 and integrated ignition
experiments with a fully functioning, complete set of detectors began in
September 2010. These experiments include basic high energy density science
research in fields such as astrophysics, nuclear physics, radiation transport,
materials dynamics and hydrodynamics.
Two new superconducting medium-sized tokamaks, Korea
Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) in the Republic of
Korea (Fig. B-1) and Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak
(EAST) in China, are now in full operation. These long-pulse ITER-related
experiments are aimed at investigating relevant ITER issues associated with
steady-state operation. Both experiments have started high power operation with
the use of additional plasma heating. The Korean National Fusion Research
Institute (NFRI), home of KSTAR, hosted in October 2010 the 23rd IAEA Fusion
Energy Conference (FEC 2010), at which reports were presented on the latest
advances in all major fusion plasma experiments.
FIG. B-1. The KSTAR device at NFRI, Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
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