1,300 visitors "at home" at ITER

When preparation work began on the platform in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance more than seven years ago, ITER was a mystery for many people in neighbouring towns and villages.

 

Since that date, some 70,000 people, most of them local residents, have been welcomed to the construction site. ITER is no longer a "UFO"; as more and more local companies have become involved in its progress, the project has become part of day-to-day reality.

 

 

Visitors now seem "at home" at ITER, more comfortable when asking questions about the science, the technology, the delays and "chances of success" of the project.

 

Whatever their age or their background they also seem to share in the excitement of this unique scientific endeavour. "Do you really mean that fusion could one day provide an unlimited source of energy?" asked many a visitor.

 

Available to answer these questions and many others, to comment on the videos and the mockups in the Visitors Centre, and to take participants on a tour of the worksite were 22 ITER staff volunteers.

 

Explaining ITER to the public is always an enriching experience: physicists are often challenged to answer questions simpler than the ones they had anticipated ... and for this very reason that much more difficult to answer.

 

The Open Doors Day was also largely covered by the media: France Télévision aired a two-minute piece on the evening news locally and the daily newspaper La Provence ran a full page on the "project that could change the course of history."

 

On the front page, a large picture showed a young boy pressing his mouth to the display case containing a model of the ITER Tokamak. The title proclaimed: "The public embraces the ITER Project!"