Mr. Ikeda’s brilliant career prior to joining the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project (ITER) was first introduced to the public. Upon graduating from Tokyo University with a degree in nuclear engineering, Mr. Ikeda joined the Science and Technology Agency (STA), becoming in 1984 Director of its Nuclear Fuels Division, He then worked as Counsellor to the Scientific Section of the Japanese Embassy In Washington, D.C. Back in Japan, he held several important jobs, among other Deputy Minister for Science and Executive Director of the National Spatial Development Agency. He became Ambassador to Croatia in 2003 and was called to the ITER project in 2006, becoming its director-general in November 2007.

The ITER Project

Mr. Ikeda likes the atmosphere in France and feels fortunate to lead the ITER project, which aims at replicating fusion, the process which is at the core of our sun: hydrogen nuclei collide, fuse into heavier helium atoms and release tremendous amounts of energy. On earth, it relies on two small atoms, deuterium, found in small quantity in water, and tritium, produced from lithium. Both are hydrogen isotopes and their fusion reaction produces the highest energy gain at the lowest temperature, which nevertheless is over 100 million degrees Celsius. This creates a plasma and yields tremendous amounts of energy. Fusion means the possibility of creating energy without generating green house gases or long-lived nuclear waste. Fusion has already been done in very small quantities, for example at the JET (Joint European Torus) in Great Britain. ITER aims at doing the same thing on a much larger scale to demonstrate fusion technology as a new energy source.

Project history

At the Geneva Superpower Summit in November 1985, U.S. President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev of the former Soviet Union agreed on an international project aimed at developing fusion energy for peaceful purposes. Japan and the European Union joined the project in 1998 and the four parties organized international collaboration since then and came up with the design to build in 2001. After lengthy discussions on the frame and the selection of the site for construction, Cadarache was agreed on in 2005 in the meantime China and the Republic of Korea joined in 2003, India finally in 2005. On November 21, 2006, the ITER Agreement was signed by representatives of the seven parties to the project at the Elysée Palace. The Agreement entered into force on October 24, 2007 when it was ratified by all members and officially established the ITER Organization.

The Tokamak concept

The Tokamak will be the core of ITER. This concept of magnetic confinement in which the plasma is contained in a doughnut-shaped vacuum vessel was invented by Russian physicists some sixty years ago. The magnetic field uses superconductivity and this will allow the ITER Tokamak to generate more than ten times the energy quantity it consumes. It will be a very big facility, capable of containing 840 cubic meters of plasma. The vacuum chamber alone will weigh 8000 tons - to give an idea of the scale of the project, the Eiffel Tower weighs 7000 tons. Its external diameter will be 19.3 meters and its height 11.3 meters.

Time frame and projected costs

The reference design was established in 2001 with the assumption that construction would take ten years followed by a twenty-year operation period. The construction investment was estimated at 5.36 billion Euros, with the European Union providing around 45 %, and the other parties each 9 %. Most of this investment will be provided in kind, in the form of components put together by the ITER Organization. The PACA Region is also contributing 467 million Euros to the project in infrastructure (roads, international school etc). The modality of contribution is not uniform, and the most ambitious aspect of the project is that after ten years all the knowledge generated by the project will be shared by all members. A good example for this unique aspect of the project is the TF Magnet Coils, the components of which are manufactured in Japan, EU, Russia, Korea, China, USA and are then delivered and assembled in Cadarache.
The management scheme was decided in May 2006. The ITER Organization which was formally established in 2007 is an international organization and it has counterparts in each member (the European Union domestic agency is located in Barcelona, Spain). These domestic agencies are in charge of procurement and delivery of major components under the procurement arrangements (PA) between the ITER Organization.
Work is progressing. A design review has made it possible to find many ways to improve the machine, and the baseline, along with the original assumptions, is about to be updated. The ITER Organization currently has around 450 employees from 29 countries, with around three hundred professionals and the rest support personnel. 30 % of the employees are French, around thirty Japanese nationals.
As of today, 34 PAs have been signed, for an amount of approximately 1900 million Euros, 41% of total procurement for construction of ITER. 19 additional PAs are to be signed by the end of the year, for an amount of 1186 million Euros.
The Project Baseline will be finalized by June 2010, and a common clock has to be defined. It will establish the detailed schedule up to 2019, which is to be the year of First Plasma. The operation period will then follow for 20 years aiming at start of DT operation in 2026.

ITER today

The 180 hectares site is located next to the Cadarache Nuclear Research Centre. Forty buildings, including the Tokamak complex which will have a cryostat system, are to be built on 42 hectares. The building license was granted in April 2008. Excavation for Tokamak Building is expected to take place this year, and Permanent Office building as well. All major components will be shipped to the Fos Harbour and then brought to the site by road. The distance is 106 kilometres. The PACA Region upgraded its road system to accommodate the very heavy loads this entails, and the Gendarmerie will greatly help the special convoys as many as 300 times which needs 3 to 4 nights fro travel.

External relations

Monaco is helping ITER by financing post-doctorate students. There are currently five of them working at ITER Organization. The ITER Organization also has a partnership with CERN in the area of cryogenic technology.
The International School established in Manosque is another aspect. This school was created as contribution of the French government, and offers classes from kindergarten through high school. It currently has six linguistic sections, Chinese, English, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish with 50 % of curriculum in French as public school. Local children are admitted if their bilingual ability is sufficient. The school currently has three hundred students, and its capacity will be of about 900 students with completion of new building this summer.
The ITER community, including the employees’ families, currently numbers more than one thousand persons in Provence, France.

Events in 2010

The site will be formally handed over to the international organization by the French CEA. The Tokamak excavation will be started, and construction of the PF Coils Winding building is to be started and Permanent Office Building as well. The Baseline is to be finalized on June. And the Public Inquiry on the safety document is also expected in autumn this year.

Questions from the public:

Mr. Watanabe, vice president, Clarion Europe SAS, had two questions. He first wanted to know what would happen if an accident caused the strong magnetic field to disappear, and the second was about the commercial phase of the project. He did not quite understand how this would lead to electricity.
Regarding the safety issue, Mr. Ikeda explained that it had been very carefully examined and that if anything goes wrong the plasma will immediately disappear, which would mean the end and the structures like vacuum vessel are designed to be strong enough. As for Mr. Watanabe’s second question, he explained that ITER will produce heat, and that the blanket covering the Tokamak will absorb the heat which could then go through a heat exchanger in order to produce steam used to generate electricity. He stressed that since ITER’s object is to demonstrate the technological feasibility of fusion, no heat exchanger is planned. ITER is a step on the way to use this technology and it is to be followed by another step called as “DEMO” to demonstrate the commercial feasibility of fusion.
He added that the current priority is to set up the baseline as soon as possible. Two years ago, when the scope of the project was approved, the Members requested further examination to be confident in the feasibility of the schedule. First Plasma in 2019 is likely to be approved. Schedule requires a massive effort as the seven parties have to agree on one clock. The ITER project progresses seemingly slowly but understandably so.

Mr. Dumont, president, Laurent Perrier Développement, asked Mr. Ikeda how he succeeds in managing such a complex project with so many employees and so many partners.
Mr. Ikeda replied that when he joined the project, the international organization was not yet created, and that the main characteristics of the project in his mind are first the fact that it is an international collaborative project, and second that it is a construction project. The international aspect is in his view a plus, as diversity is a source of energy, and different approaches are an advantage when approaching different tasks. The construction project, which basically is a matter of “what, when, how”, depends on the enthusiasm of the Parties, and in this respect, the pressure exerted on the project by the poorer partners is very healthy as it leads to a more reliable organization. He added that the procurement management at ITER has demonstrated the prospects of the project. Since ITER is a nuclear installation where French regulatory requirements apply, major components are subject to inspection by the authority even in their fabrication process.

Mr. Pierre Wertheimer, a former Thomson-CSF executive who now teaches at a business school, wanted to know how the workload is distributed among the EU countries and more specifically if this was done in the same manner as at Euratom, and the ITER Organisation’s thinking about future patents.
Mr. Ikeda explained that the investment scheme is the Euratom scheme, and that the EU contribution is managed by the Barcelona entity, which employs around two hundred persons. As for patents, he explained that the intellectual property generated by ITER will be equally shared, and this aspect has to be very carefully managed since some of the knowledge invested in the project has to be protected.

A fourth participant asked Mr. Ikeda how he is planning to attract and keep young people in the ITER Organization. Recruitment has proven to be a problem in the French nuclear industry, and in this participant’s opinion, it was probably an important issue for the ITER Organization.
Mr. Ikeda commented that this was a very good question. When he first joined the project, it had an international team of around one hundred persons, in two sites; one in Germany and another in Japan. Most of them have accepted to come to Cadarache. The first new hires were thus mostly scientists, and currently the Organization hires more engineers and technicians. Recruitment is done through job descriptions. Contracts usually are for five years. Ten years from now, the operation phase will require a different kind of personnel, and the ITER Organization has to be flexible. Furthermore, the Tokamak technology is very specific, but other parts of the project have a lot in common with nuclear facilities. Outsourcing is also a possibility. A current average age of the personnel is about 45 years, and the project continues as least 30 years from now. In order to staff this long-life project as required, more students in science and engineering and academic societies in the world have to be attracted to the project, and the ITER Organization is looking to develop its cooperation with universities.