5 Sep (NucNet): The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Organisation and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) have signed an agreement aiming to promote scientific and technological cooperation between the network of laboratories and institutes engaged in fusion research.
ITER director-general Osamu Motojima signed the agreement during a recent visit to Beijing, ITER said.
China is one of the seven founding members of ITER and MOST is “steering the country's national scientific and technological development”, a statement said.
The agreement, which ITER said will make use of a global network of laboratories, comprises “the exchange of and training of scientists, engineers, specialists, administrators and project managers with regard to mega science projects for agreed periods of time”.
It also includes the organisation of seminars and workshops, and the exchange of information and data on scientific and technical activities.
ITER is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering project which is building the world’s largest and most advanced experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor at the Cadarache facility in the south of France.
The ITER project aims to make the transition from experimental studies of plasma physics to full-scale, electricity-producing fusion power plants.
The project is funded and run by seven member entities – the European Union, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the US. The EU, as host party for the ITER complex, is contributing 45 percent of the cost, with the other six parties contributing nine percent each.
In June 2012, ITER said the project is moving from the design phase to the manufacturing of real components. The first manufactured component will arrive on the ITER site in 2014.
Last month, ITER signed the contract for the manufacturing of the cryostat, a 3,800-tonne steel structure that will be the largest high-vacuum pressure chamber ever built, with the Indian company Larsen & Toubro.
The cryostat forms the vacuum-tight container surrounding the ITER vacuum vessel and the superconducting magnets – essentially acting as a very large refrigerator.
For more information on the cryostat: http://www.iter.org/newsline/235/1287
