Fusion documentary to be aired on Arte-TV
10 Sep 2010
In the coming days, France 2 National network should also air a presentation of ITER in the 8 o'clock news.
French documentary director Jacques Bedel remembers how, as a teenager, an article on fusion in a popular science magazine triggered his curiosity. "It seemed very promising. I was particularly impressed by an image of the giant orange magnets around the tokamak ... probably JET's."
Years later, Bedel was to get much closer to fusion. For nearly two years, between 2008 and 2009, he directed the shooting of a TV documentary that took him from Tore Supra and from ITER, to the Laser Mégajoule (LMJ), an inertial fusion installation located near Bordeaux, and to the Z Machine at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico (US).
"Le Soleil sur Terre" (The Sun on the Earth), which French TV channel Arte will air on Monday 13 September at 4:30 p.m., is the first in a series of four 52-minute programs entitled "Building it Green."
The series presents fusion, geothermal energies in Iceland, and two other "zero carbon projects," one in Abu Dhabi, the other one in China.
Several ITER and Tore Supra staff members appear in Bedel's documentary, which features an interview with Gary Johnson, presently Acting Head of the Department for ITER Project.
"Le Soleil sur Terre" will also be presented at the 6th Pariscience International Film Festival on 7 October, in Paris.