Why ITER Will Be In France


In the last gasp of Princeton's TFTR, the scientists got cold feet and
decided not to put tritium fuel into the tokamak, to get a brief look at
ignition physics. This was nothing short of cowardice, because the fraidy
cats didn't want to be exposed to radiation.

Now the NY Times is reporting that ITER will attempt to breed tritium from
lithium, hoping to prove that a self-contained fuel cycle is possible.
This will require handling radioactive fuel, and dealing with large neutron
fluxes.

I believe that the reason the selection committee chose France was because
the French know how to build and operate nuclear reactors safely. They
won't be scared to run the plasma in the ignition domain, but will simply
design radiation shielding sufficient to protect the staff.
.

Quantcast