#107 Open Letter to Editors of Science Magazine

Feb. 15, 2022

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Eric Hand, European News Editor, Deputy News Editor for Physical Sciences
John Travis, Managing News Editor
Tim Appenzeller, News Editor

Dear Editors,

In several news articles, Science has published inaccurate information about the purpose and primary design objective of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

Examples:

• “The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) aims to produce 500 megawatts of power.” (Daniel Clery, Dec. 9, 2003)
• “ITER aims to produce 500 megawatts of power, 10 times the amount needed to keep it running.” (Daniel Clery, Oct. 13, 2006)
• “It takes so much energy to get a plasma up to a temperature at which fusion occurs that no reactor has yet produced net energy gain. ITER is expected to break through that barrier and generate 500 megawatts from a 50 MW input for periods lasting a few minutes.” (Daniel Clery, Jan. 17, 2013)
• “The ITER project aims to show that nuclear fusion — the power source of the sun and stars — is technically feasible as a source of energy. Despite more than 60 years of work, researchers have failed to achieve a fusion reaction that produces more energy than it consumes. ITER … is the biggest attempt so far and is predicted to produce at least 500 megawatts of power from a 50 megawatt input.” (Daniel Clery, Nov. 19, 2015)
• “[ITER] should produce 500 megawatts of power from a 50 megawatt input.” (Daniel Clery, Nov. 27, 2015)
• “The international demonstration is aiming to generate about 10 times its input power.” (Christa Marshall, Dec. 21, 2017)
• “In 1994, PPPL’s largest machine ever, the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR), briefly generated 10.7 megawatts of power, still the record for U.S. efforts. … ITER aims to be the first tokamak to produce more energy than it consumes. But TFTR was also supposed to do that and it came up short.” (Adrian Cho, Feb. 6, 2020)
• “The $25 billion ITER project, which aims to build the world’s largest fusion reactor and finally demonstrate that melding together hydrogen nuclei is a viable energy source.” (Daniel Clery, May 27, 2020)
• “ITER is designed to show net energy output can be achieved.” (Daniel Clery, Feb. 24, 2022) [This entry was added afterward.]

ITER Power Facts

ITER is designed to inject 50 megawatts of heating power into the fuel to create a fusion plasma with 500 megawatts of thermal power. That is its primary scientific purpose and design objective, according to the ITER Design Specification published by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2002.

If ITER accomplishes that objective, the overall reactor will use at least 300 megawatts of electricity continuously throughout the experiment. Since 2017, some fusion scientists have started saying that the ITER reactor will need 50 megawatts to start the reaction. That is not the same as the power needed to start the reactor, which is 500 megawatts of electricity.

On this Web page, I list 11 sources that describe the operating power requirement for ITER in the 300-megawatt range. I list three references that are in the 400-megawatt range.

These facts mean that the overall ITER reactor, if it works as designed, will not produce net power or net energy.

JET Power Facts

The ITER power discrepancy was a direct successor to the JET power discrepancy. Here’s an example of the false power claims about JET, published on March 12, 2018, in the Guardian: “[JET] remains the gold standard for fusion power – but it achieved just 16 MW of output for 25 MW of input.”

JET’s 1997 result still holds the record for power output. But the 16-megawatt output needed an input of 700 megawatts. Full technical details about both reactors are here.

For Your Readers 

The ITER organization claims that the ITER reactor will “prove that fusion power can be produced on a commercial scale and is sustainable.” It says that the project “aims to demonstrate that it is possible to produce commercial energy from fusion.”

With a projected net power loss for the overall reactor, the upper management of the organization knows that they cannot possibly deliver such promises.

Perhaps your readers would appreciate learning the facts now.

Steven B. Krivit
Publisher and Senior Editor, New Energy Times