#112 French Regulator Halts Assembly of ITER Reactor

Feb 252022
 

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Note: See April 28, 2022, article “More Defective ITER Reactor Sectors” for update and correction.

By Steven B. Krivit
Feb. 21, 2022

The assembly of the reactor core of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is on hold, according to the French nuclear safety authority Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN).

The reactor core will be assembled from nine massive vacuum vessel sectors, each one 440 tons of steel. Two sectors are on site, waiting to be lowered into the reactor chamber.

On Jan. 25, 2022, Bernard Doroszczuk, the chairman of the board of directors of ASN, sent a letter to Bernard Bigot, the director-general of the ITER organization. Doroszczuk told Bigot that Bigot is not authorized to lower the two sectors into the reactor chamber unless the ITER organization can guarantee that the installed sectors can later be separated and removed.

“Consequently, the assembly of the tokamak cannot be authorized,” Doroszczuk wrote.

At New Energy Times’ request, Evangelia Petit, the press officer for ASN, provided a copy of the letter today.

“The welding of these sectors [inside the tokamak pit] would represent an irreversible operation, which needs ASN’s formal approval in order to take place,” Petit wrote.

According to the timeline published on the ITER organization’s Web site, the first sector subassembly was scheduled to be lowered into the tokamak chamber, also called the tokamak pit, in December 2021.

Vacuum vessel sector supported by a frame in the assembly hall.

Vacuum vessel sector supported by a frame in the assembly hall.

Damaged Vacuum Vessel Sectors

As New Energy Times reported on Nov. 10, 2021, both of the vacuum vessel sectors that have been delivered to the ITER site were damaged during manufacture. Either the sectors or parts of the sectors (details are unclear) fell at the manufacturing sites and sustained dimensional distortion, according to ASN.

As a result of the distortions, the subassembly of these sectors cannot be performed as planned in the spacious assembly hall. Instead, the ITER organization has proposed performing the subassembly of the damaged sectors inside the confined space, where the final assembly of the reactor core will take place.

If the sectors cannot be welded together properly, the reactor could cause excessive radiation during operation. Gamma-ray radiation and neutrons that will be produced during ITER’s operation will require proper conjoining of the nine sectors as well as the presence of a 13-foot-thick concrete wall surrounding the reactor chamber to protect reactor workers.

Last week, Petit explained to New Energy Times that ASN was unwilling to compromise its safety standards:

The specifications provided are not sufficient to demonstrate and guarantee compliance with the requirements, specifically concerning a) radiological protection material and [its] impact on the total weight of the tokamak and b) welding and related controls of the vacuum vessel sectors, given the existence of dimensional non-conformance. In order to go forward, we have requested IO to provide us with a consolidated design, carefully reviewed in order to check [compliance with] all safety and radiological protection criteria.

ASN learned about the damaged sectors during a July 2, 2021, inspection and reported its findings to Bigot on July 20, 2021. Since that time, according to public documents on the ASN Web site, the ITER organization has made repeated requests to ASN to allow the organization to proceed with installation of the damaged sectors using an alternate method.

Impasse

On Jan. 5, 2022, a meeting took place between the ITER organization, ASN, and another French nuclear regulator, Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN), in an attempt to resolve the impasse, according to Michel Claessens, former spokesman for the ITER organization, who maintains contacts with sources inside the organization.

“During a special meeting of the steering committee with ASN, IRSN, and the ITER organization on Jan. 5, 2022, ASN announced that the reactor assembly is not authorized, which means, in practice, a shutdown of the project,” Claessens wrote.

New Major Design Review Required

ASN told the ITER organization that the regulator is not satisfied with other aspects of the current reactor design because they present excessive risks of ionizing radiation to workers. These are excerpts, translated from French, from Doroszczuk’s letter to Bigot:

As is evident from the in-depth examination of your file and the many technical exchanges held between your teams and the ASN departments as well as the IRSN experts, the following elements apply:

– The “neutron budget” values that you anticipate during the operation of the installation are greater than the maximum neutron fluence to be taken into account for the dimensioning of installation.

– The elements received concerning the radiological maps do not make it possible to demonstrate that the limitation of exposure to ionizing radiation is controlled, a major challenge for an installation of nuclear fusion.

In particular, the progressive activation of materials under the effect of intense neutron flux is not properly taken into account, and the exposure of workers in adjoining premises to nuclear buildings should be assessed with realistic conservative assumptions. …

Given the elements noted above, ASN considers that this condition is not satisfied at this stage. Thus, the hold point related to the tokamak assembly cannot be lifted before February 1, 2022. Consequently, the assembly of the tokamak is suspended. In the immediate future, I urge you not to take any action that is difficult to reverse concerning the sectors of the vacuum chamber affected by dimensional non-conformities, so as not to impede your capacity to carry out the repairs that would be deemed useful with a view to their welding.

I invite you to make sure that you have a stabilized design of all the equipment associated with the vacuum chamber, the overall consistency of your sizing, with regard to all the requirements that you had set yourselves regarding the protection of workers, the public, and the environment, and the proper accounting of deviations and defects already noted during construction. An in-depth design review needs to be carried out before you again seek authorization to start assembling the tokamak equipment inside the cryostat.

 

 

Feb. 28: 2022: ITER Organization Releases Statement

Feb. 24, 2022: We have received some questions about the details of the damage to the sectors. Here’s a repeat of what we said in this article:

As New Energy Times reported on Nov. 10, 2021, both of the vacuum vessel sectors that have been delivered to the ITER site were damaged during manufacture. Either the sectors or parts of the sectors (details are unclear) fell at the manufacturing sites and sustained dimensional distortion, according to ASN.

The ASN document INSSN-MRS-2021-0650.pdf contains the best available information we have about the damage. Here are the statements in French, also translated to English.

Les inspecteurs ont notamment examiné par sondage le traitement des écarts et des modifications ainsi que les suites des chutes d’éléments de secteurs de la chambre à vide lors de leur manutention sur des sites de fabrication en Corée du Sud et en Italie. La découverte de falsification de certificats de qualifications de soudeurs, à la suite d’une information d’alerte de l’ASN, a également fait l’objet de vérifications.

In particular, the inspectors examined on a test basis the treatment of deviations and modifications as well as that the consequences of the falls of elements of sectors of the vacuum chamber during their handling on manufacturing sites in South Korea and Italy. The discovery of forgery of certificates of welder qualifications, following an alert from ASN, was also the subject of checks.

Chute d’éléments de secteurs de la chambre à vide: Des éléments de secteurs de la chambre à vide ont chuté lors de manutention sur les sites de fabrication, en Corée du Sud en avril 2021 et en Italie en mai 2021.

Falling elements of sectors of the vacuum chamber: Elements of the sectors of the vacuum chamber fell during handling on the manufacturing sites, in South Korea in April 2021 and in Italy in May 2021.

If anyone can provide more specific details about the damage, please let us know!

April 28, 2022: Last paragraph corrected from “Sectors of the vacuum chamber” to “Elements of the sectors of the vacuum chamber.”

#114 Open Letter to Dr. Bernard Bigot, Director-General of the ITER Organization

Feb 242022
 

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By Steven B. Krivit
Feb. 24, 2022

Dear Dr. Bigot,

I noted with interest your letter today responding to our news story published Feb. 21, 2022, “French Regulator Halts Assembly of ITER Reactor.”

You wrote, “Recently some misinformation has circulated at the initiative of a few well-known anti-hydrogen-fusion activists regarding the status of the ASN (Autorité de sûreté nucléaire) oversight of the ITER project.”

You further wrote, “Contrary to what has been claimed by these anti-ITER fellows using social media, the ASN has not shut down ITER construction.”

New Energy Times first reported this story on Monday. Daniel Clery of Science reported the news today. Clearly, you must be referring to us. But New Energy Times did not say that construction at the ITER site had been shut down. I’m certain that there are lots of construction activities at your site. The focus of our article, as our title says, is a halt of the assembly of the reactor.

You wrote, “There have also been claims that the vacuum vessel sectors were dropped – also false.”

Well, sir, I would kindly direct you to what we reported on Monday:

As New Energy Times reported on Nov. 10, 2021, both of the vacuum vessel sectors that have been delivered to the ITER site were damaged during manufacture. Either the sectors or parts of the sectors (details are unclear) fell at the manufacturing sites and sustained dimensional distortion, according to ASN.

Here’s what we reported three months ago based on the July 2, 2021, ASN ITER Inspection Report #INSSN-MRS-2021-0650:

In the report, the most serious issue identified by the inspectors was that parts of two very large components, sectors of the vacuum vessel, fell during manufacturing and sustained damage. The ASN report does not provide details of the damage.

The report also states that inspectors discovered the forgery of certificates of welder qualifications, found gaps in welds, and detected leaks in cooling tower basins. Inspectors wrote that one of the areas at the reactor construction site was not accessible to them on the day of the inspection. Inspectors also noted unsatisfactory responses to their requests for documents from the ITER organization.

Here are the key parts of what the ASN document INSSN-MRS-2021-0650 says, first in French, then translated to English:

Part 1

Les inspecteurs ont notamment examiné par sondage le traitement des écarts et des modifications ainsi que les suites des chutes d’éléments de secteurs de la chambre à vide lors de leur manutention sur des sites de fabrication en Corée du Sud et en Italie. La découverte de falsification de certificats de qualifications de soudeurs, à la suite d’une information d’alerte de l’ASN, a également fait l’objet de vérifications.

In particular, the inspectors examined on a test basis the treatment of deviations and modifications as well as that the consequences of the falls of elements of sectors of the vacuum chamber during their handling on manufacturing sites in South Korea and Italy. The discovery of forgery of certificates of welder qualifications, following an alert from ASN, was also the subject of checks.

Part 2

Chute d’éléments de secteurs de la chambre à vide: Des éléments de secteurs de la chambre à vide ont chuté lors de manutention sur les sites de fabrication, en Corée du Sud en avril 2021 et en Italie en mai 2021.

Falling elements of sectors of the vacuum chamber: Sectors of the vacuum chamber fell during handling on the manufacturing sites, in South Korea in April 2021 and in Italy in May 2021.

More important is that the ITER Organization accepted delivery of these two damaged sectors more than eight months ago. ASN advised you of the damage eight months ago. In response, you continually asked ASN to accept your alternate installation plan and to release the hold point. ASN has repeatedly declined your request to release the hold. Finally, in a meeting on Jan. 5, 2022, ASN specifically instructed you not to proceed unless you could remove the sectors from the pit.

Your Web site says that insertion of the first sector was to take place in December 2021. So assembly of the reactor vessel has been on hold for two months. And you did not share this information publicly.

As always, we take journalistic integrity seriously and welcome any letter identifying any error of fact or context or any significant omission in New Energy Times.

Kind regards,
Steven B. Krivit

Feb. 28: 2022: ITER Organization Releases Statement

#113 Response by ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot

Feb 242022
 

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By Steven B. Krivit
Feb. 24, 2022

On Monday, New Energy Times published “French Regulator Halts Assembly of ITER Reactor.”

Today, Bernard Bigot, the director-general of the ITER organization, sent the following letter to ITER staff members. Several of them sent us copies of the letter, which we have reproduced, unedited, below.

See our response here.

 

From: Bigot Bernard <Bernard.Bigot@iter.org>
Sent: 24 February 2022 14:00
To: only-staff <only-staff@iter.org>; All-IPA <All-IPA@iter.org>
Subject: FW: Message to All-ITER regarding ongoing activities with ASN, the French safety regulator

Dear Colleagues,

For those of you who are not yet aware, I would like to inform you that the IO has received a letter from the French Nuclear Regulator (ASN, Autorité de sûreté nucléaire) dated 25 January 2022 in response to our request, dated 1 February 2021, for authorization to start assembling Tokamak equipment inside the cryostat (welding of the first two vacuum vessel sectors). The purpose of our request was to get the release of the Hold Point decided in November 2013 by ASN for checking as-built performances of the B2 slab supporting the Tokamak Complex Building. This is normal procedure after ASN validated the proposed ITER design in 2012 and signed the “décret d’autorisation de creation” of ITER as a nuclear installation in 9 November 2012.

After many meetings at technical levels with ASN and IRSN (its technical supporting organisation) during the year 2021/early 2022, ASN considered that there were still some points that require complementary analysis and safety demonstration. They are mainly related to radiation protection measures, confirmation of the as-built masses supported by the slab and their impact on the mechanical resilience of the slab in extreme conditions, and qualifications of the process of the vacuum welding after due consideration of some geometrical non-conformities of the sectors interfaces that we had detected.

We immediately set up a IO task force with all the stakeholders to address the complementary requests from ASN before they would be able to release the hold point for Tokamak assembly. Our roadmap is to provide IO key answers before the end of April 2022 in such a way ASN could assess them and decide about the release without impacting the ITER schedule for installation of the sectors.

Recently some misinformation has circulated at the initiative of a few well-known anti-hydrogen-fusion activists regarding the status of the ASN (Autorité de sûreté nucléaire) oversight of the ITER project. It is important for all ITER staff and collaborators to be reassured regarding this issue.

Contrary to what has been claimed by these anti-ITER fellows using social media, the ASN has not shut down ITER construction – as anyone at ITER may find quite evident by observing the broad range of successful activities progressing every day across the worksite, at the highest standards of quality and safety. There have also been claims that the vacuum vessel sectors were dropped – also false. While some nonconformities have been identified with the vacuum vessel sectors (see above), as noted in the ASN letter, these are technical challenges for which we will provide safe, high quality engineering solutions. Given the unprecedented technical specifications for ITER’s many First-of-a-Kind components, which we are combining into a First-of-a-Kind machine, some such nonconformities and technical challenges are to be expected – and in fact, over the past 7 years and more, we have overcome many technical challenges, and we will continue to do so.

Please do not be distracted by these types of false claims. The One-ITER team – all of you – should feel absolutely proud of the amazing work that has been performed so far, the work being performed every day, and our determination to face the challenges that lie ahead. I ask you never to lose sight of the ultimate goal: we are committed to deliver the ITER facility as a demonstration of the feasibility of fusion power to provide safe, environmentally friendly, and virtually unlimited energy for future generations.

With gratitude for your continued strong efforts on behalf of the ITER project,

Warmest regards,

Bernard

See our response here.

#111 Open Letter to Editors of the New York Times

Feb 192022
 

Feb. 19, 2022

Celia Dugger, Science Editor
Pui-Wing Tam, Technology Editor
Michael Roston, Deputy Technology Editor

Dear Editors,

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

Examples:
  • “If successful, the reactor would ignite a fusion reaction and produce up to 1.5 billion watts of power, demonstrating the feasibility of exploiting hydrogen fusion for large-scale power generation.” (Malcolm Brown— Dec. 10, 1996)
  • “ITER, a $10 billion project intended to demonstrate by the year 2008 that hydrogen isotope fusion, a process somewhat similar to that which powers the sun, could be a commercially practical source of energy.” (Malcolm Brown— May 20, 1997)
  • “ITER would provide a record 500 megawatts of fusion power for at least 500 seconds, a little more than eight minutes, during each experiment. That would meet the power needs of about 140,000 homes.” (Robert Stern — 31, 2003)
  • “The goal is to prove that energy can be generated through nuclear fusion … So far, experimental fusion reactors have required more energy to operate than they have produced. ITER and the project in Japan are supposed to prove that fusion could be much more than a drain on the grid. … Scientists then would spend the next decade or so trying to create bursts of power of up to 500 megawatts for several minutes at a time.” (James Kanter — April 29, 2009)
  • “Although all fusion reactors to date have produced less energy than they use, physicists are expecting that ITER will benefit from its larger size, and will produce about 10 times more power than it consumes.” (Henry Fountain — March 27, 2017)
  • “The [ITER] consortium hopes to begin generating electricity at the site in 2035. … So far, the best effort to reach positive energy output from a fusion reactor was achieved by the Joint European Torus, or JET, project, a Tokamak that began operation in 1983 in Oxfordshire, England. The device was able to produce 16 megawatts of fusion power while consuming 24 megawatts.” (John Markoff, Aug. 11, 2021)
  • “In the late 1990s, the Joint European Torus experiment in England was able to generate 16 million watts of fusion power for a brief moment, going about 70 percent of the way to producing as much power as it consumed.” (Kenneth Chang — Aug. 17, 2021)
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

 

 

#110 Open Letter to Editors of New Scientist

Feb 182022
 

Feb. 18, 2022

Richard Webb, Executive Editor, New Scientist
Emily Wilson, Editor, New Scientist

Dear Editors,

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

Examples:
  • “For 50 MW of input power, ITER will generate 500 MW of output power.” (Roger Highfield, Valerie Jamieson, Neil Calder and Robert Arnoux, Oct. 9, 2009)
  • “[ITER is] aiming to get about 10 times more energy out of the fusion reaction than they put in. That will prove fusion energy is possible.” (Sean O’Neill quoting Melanie Windridge, Sept. 15, 2018)
  • “That might change in 2025, when the world’s biggest fusion project, ITER in France, is due to switch on. The hope is it will turn 50 megawatts of power into 500MW, proving a net gain is possible.” (Adam Vaughan, Dec. 2, 2020)
  • “The plan is to create 500 megawatts of usable energy from an input of 50 megawatts.” (Matthew Sparkes, June 15, 2021)
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

 

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