Scenic transport
19 Dec 2016
The cold boxes are now "in stillage" at the entrance of the ITER site, along with the quench tanks delivered a few weeks earlier and also part of the ITER Cryoplant. © Patrick Loez - Acapella Bleu
On their way down the Rhône Valley the cold boxes passed some of the most beautiful scenery of southern France: the vineyards of the Côtes du Rhône, the belfries and castles of the ancient papal city of Avignon, the Roman ruins of Arles, the wilderness of the Camargue ...
They travelled by road, sea-river vessel, barge and by road again ─ 500 kilometres in total between the Air Liquide factory near Grenoble, where the boxes were produced, and the ITER site, which they reached in the early hours of Thursday 15 December.
The three 135-tonne cold boxes are part of the ITER cryoplant, a powerful installation that will produce and circulate the ultra-cold fluids (helium and nitrogen) needed to cool the ITER superconducting magnets and other "cold systems."