This is a single element of the donut-shaped plasma chamber for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). There is a construction worker standing near the bottom to give perspective on the size. They are still perfecting manufacturing processes for the thousands of other major components (most of which is nearly complete). The reactor is going to be built just east of Toronto, Ontario, Canada if we win the bid - currently we have the best site in terms of materials availability, cost, and expertise. ITER will be the first fusion reactor to produce a surplus of energy, although it won't generate electricity.

Here is the response I got from the ITER research team when I emailed them:

ITER?
Dear Success_Machine,
ITER will demonstrate most of the technologies necessary for electrical power production but will not itself produce electrical power. Standard power generation equipment is an unnecessary additional expense for an experimental device, and we would have to operate a tritium breeding blanket at high temperature from the start - we don't have the technology for that confirmed yet but we will test it on ITER. However, from the exact wording of your question, we believe that ITER will demonstrate whether or not fusion will be viable for commercial electrical production. The subsequent device, DEMO, will be more of a prototype power station, and will generate electrical power. No doubt it will not be a full sized plant to reduce capital costs, so I doubt if the electricity it produces will actually be competitively priced. The next machine after that, around 2050, should be the first full size commercial power station, with relatively competitively priced electricity, although the full benefits of cheap power only come when you build several power stations on the same model (as in the French deployment of fission power stations in the 1970/80s).
I hope that clarifies it.
Bill

Hello, I am interested in nuclear fusion for electrical production. Could you tell me if ITER will demonstrate that fusion is viable for commercial electrical production, or not? Will it ever be viable? If so, when?

Thank you,
Success_Machine

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Bill Spears, ITER Garching JWS, Boltzmannstr. 2,
D-85748 Garching bei München
Tel: +49-89-3299-4221/4129
Fax: +49-89-3299-4313
E-mail: spearsw@itereu.de

Have you seen the ITER web site at http://www.iter.org ?