How many times have you heard the phrase ‘collaboration is key’ in the R&D arena? First discussed in 1985 at a meeting between those most unlikely of bedfellows, President Ronald Regan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is the world’s largest scientific partnership. Comprising 35 member nations, ITER aims to demonstrate the viability of nuclear fusion as a sustainable energy source.
ITER’s ultimate goal is similar to that of another of our big spenders, the National Ignition Facility, but the method of getting there is very different. Instead of relying on powerful lasers, ITER is designed to heat up a deuterium/tritium mixture inside a giant magnetic fusion device known as a tokamak. Though still in the construction phase, it’s hoped that sometime after 2035, ITER will create 500 MW of output power from 50 MW input power, producing a significant net energy gain for the first time in a fusion reactor.
The next stage would be to use the heat created to make steam to power an electricity-generating turbine. Plans have already been proposed for the first commercial demonstration fusion power plant, appropriately named DEMO. Providing it works, there couldn’t be any finer example of the benefits of collaboration, except perhaps for calling in Jumpstart to help with your R&D tax credit claim.
* All costs calculated in 2017 $US
