ITER - Timeline and Current Status

Timeline and Current Status

In 1978, the EC, Japan, USA and USSR joined in the International Tokamak Reactor (INTOR) Workshop, under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to assess the readiness of magnetic fusion to move forward to the experimental power reactor (EPR) stage, to identify the additional R&D that must be undertaken and to define the characteristics of such an EPR by means of a conceptual design. Hundreds of fusion scientists and engineers in each participating country took part in a detailed assessment of the then present status of the tokamak confinement concept vis-a-vis the requirements of an EPR, identified the required R&D by early 1980 and produced a conceptual design by mid-1981. At the Geneva summit meeting in 1985, Secretary Gorbachev suggested to President Reagan that the two countries jointly undertake the construction of a tokamak EPR as proposed by the INTOR Workshop. The ITER project was initiated in 1988. The history of the INTOR Workshop is documented in "Quest for a Fusion Energy Reactor: An Insider's Account of the INTOR Workshop", Oxford University Press (2010).

Launched in 1985, the ITER project was formally agreed to and funded in 2006 with a cost estimate of $12.8 billion (10 billion Euro) projecting the start of construction in 2008 and completion a decade later.