India Contributes to ITER's Major Milestone in World's Largest Fusion Project.
International
In April 2025, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the world’s largest nuclear fusion project based in southern France, achieved a significant milestone in developing its main magnet system, with India playing a pivotal role in building essential infrastructure. This infrastructure is designed to confine the super-hot plasma particles that combine and fuse to release energy.
- The ITER project, which is supported by over 30 countries, including the United States, China, Japan, Russia, and the European Union, aims to assemble the world’s most powerful magnet, the Central Solenoid.
- The Central Solenoid has already been completed and tested by the USA and will now be assembled in southern France. The project's start-up phase is slated for 2033.
- The completion of the sixth module of the Central Solenoid, the main magnet that drives plasma in the ITER reactor, marks a significant milestone in the project. ITER aims to produce 500 MW of energy from just 50 MW of input.
Main Point :- (i) India has made crucial contributions, including designing and manufacturing the cryostat, a 30-meter tall chamber housing the ITER Tokamak. Additionally, India built cryolines to cool the magnets, and delivered key systems like in-wall shielding, cooling water, and parts of the heating system to raise the plasma temperature to over 150 million degrees Celsius.
(ii) The Tokamak reactor, used in ITER, is designed for controlled nuclear fusion, using powerful magnetic fields to confine superheated plasma. The reactor operates on a pulsed superconducting electromagnet system.
(iii) The Tokamak design, originally developed by Soviet researchers in the 1960s, became the most promising configuration for magnetic confinement fusion devices and is now the basis for ITER's fusion energy production.
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