The Technological Challenge and Promise of ITER

ITER, originally the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, is currently under construction in southern France. An international collaboration among the European Union, China India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the US, ITER is both the largest fusion device and the largest scientific project ever attempted by the human race.  If successful, ITER will be the first machine to produce a net gain in fusion power through a self-burning plasma, generating about ten times as much power from fusion reactions as is required to heat the deuterium-tritium fuel.  To obtain such conditions entails not only extending our understanding of plasmas in tokamaks, but extending the technologies used to confine, heat, fuel and diagnose deuterium-tritium plasmas.  Richard Hawryluk’s presentation will describe the scientific and technological challenges presented by ITER and the opportunities it may bring.

Richard Hawryluk received his PhD in physics from MIT and has spent most of his career at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.  From 1991-1997 he directed TFTR, the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor, which was the largest fusion device in the US and the second largest in the world.  Afterwards he served for twelve years as PPPL’s deputy director.   More recently, he spent  two years in France as ITER’s deputy director general and since then has returned to Princeton where he now heads the ITER and Tokamaks Department.  

Coffee and Cookies 4:00 PM