Construction
The stage is now set for the next act
8 Jul 2019
Nine years and 382 Newsline issues ago, a lone power shovel began removing the top soil from the area on the ITER platform where the Tokamak Complex now stands. Following two years of clearing and levelling work by France, construction of the ITER installation was beginning in earnest.
The ITER plant systems are distributed across the one-kilometre-long construction platform in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France. In the centre, the concrete Tokamak Complex which will house the ITER machine. The precise location of the 430,000-tonne Complex was determined by the quality of the underlying bedrock.
This is what the 42-hectare ITER platform looked like in the early months of 2010: a vast, featureless, moon-like expanse.
It may be hard to believe, but this is what the 42-hectare ITER platform looked like in the early months of 2010, just before being transferred from Agence Iter France to the European Domestic Agency, responsible for construction. A vast, featureless, moon-like expanse that—being located in Provence—some described as the largest pétanque court ever created.
One by one, the now-familiar buildings and structures have sprung from the earth: nine years into construction civil works are 73 percent complete, concrete has reached its final level in the Tokamak Building, and a massive machine component—the cryostat lower cylinder—is visible, carefully encased in its protective cocoon, waiting to be installed in the Assembly Pit.
As conveyed by the images from this latest drone survey (June 2019), the stage is now set for the next act in the project's history: the machine assembly phase, set to begin in May 2020.
Seen from the sky: the ITER construction site including the heavy haul road for component deliveries to the Assembly Hall (curving around the platform at left), the cooling water towers (looking a little like a domino tile with six dots, middle left), and the first component stored outdoors (top left, ring in white). Photo: ITER Organization/EJF Riche
Extending out right from the Assembly Hall is the rectangular area of the future crane gallery, which will be built up and over the Tokamak Pit. If the circular lid of the Tokamak Pit were removed, we could look down 30 metres to the Tokamak Building basemat. Photo: ITER Organization/EJF Riche
The ITER construction site, the centre of all attention as the project progresses to machine assembly and installation (kickoff March 2020) to plant commissioning and finally First Plasma. The seven ITER Members (35 nations) represent over half of the world's population and 75% of global gross domestic product. Photo: ITER Organization/EJF Riche
The first part of the electrical switchyard (the steady state network) has been turned on to power construction, assembly, and plant commissioning activities. A second pulsed power system will be energized for plasma operation to provide the superconducting magnet coils and the heating and current drive systems with the large amount of power that they need. Photo: ITER Organization/EJF Riche
Ten years ago the platform was perfectly level, but empty; today, the installation is 73% of the way to completion for First Plasma. Photo: ITER Organization/EJF Riche