ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor under construction in France, has failed a periodic inspection by ASN (Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire), the French nuclear regulator, New Energy Times has just learned. The ITER organization has not publicly disclosed the four-month-old report, which New Energy Times located on the ASN Web site last week.
The ASN Report
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.
The inspection took place on July 2, 2021, and ASN sent the report on July 20, 2021, to Bernard Bigot, the director-general of the ITER organization. The failure of the organization to publicly disclose the report and publicly respond to the issues raised in the report is alarming.
ITER is a public science project funded by taxpayers representing half the world’s population. It is a nuclear experiment that is pushing the boundaries of fusion science. The public has a right to know of safety lapses uncovered in a regulatory inspection, as do the members of the staff working on the project.
Vacuum Vessel
The central part of the reactor is called the vacuum vessel. It is composed of nine D-shaped sectors. When welded together, they will form the chamber in which the fusion reactions will take place. Each sector comprises 440 tons of steel.
Vacuum vessel sector #6, (one of nine sectors) lying on its side.
Diagram of conjoined vacuum vessel sectors
Tiny Tolerances
According to the ITER organization’s Web site, “positional tolerances for the largest components, including the magnet coils and the vacuum vessel, are as low as two millimeters.” Here are the key comments from the ASN report on the two damaged vacuum vessel sectors:
French: 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. L’équipe d’inspection s’est intéressée à la gestion de ces écarts et à la préparation des réparations nécessaires. L’analyse des causes n’était pas encore aboutie pour les 2 écarts et certains documents concernant les réparations pour la chute sur le site italien n’étaient pas disponibles le jour de l’inspection.
English: Parts of the sectors of the vacuum chamber fell during handling at the manufacturing sites, in South Korea in April 2021 and in Italy in May 2021. The inspection team looked at the management of these deviations and the preparation of the necessary repairs. The root cause analysis was not yet completed for the 2 deviations, and some documents concerning the repairs for the fall at the Italian site were not available on the day of the inspection.
If the parts sustained dimensional distortion when they fell, it may not be possible to bend the components back to the correct dimensions. Some sort of repair, if possible and if approved by the regulator, will be necessary. If repairs satisfactory to the regulators cannot be made, the project will suffer yet another major delay while waiting for replacement parts to be manufactured in Korea and Italy and delivered to France.
In a report on the previous inspection, from March 30, 2021, inspectors wrote that “questions persist about the qualification of manufacturing materials and welds” about the vacuum vessel pressure suppression system. Inspectors were also concerned about protection of the system with regard to fire resistance.
#91 ITER Fusion Reactor Fails Nuclear Regulatory Agency Inspection was last modified: April 16th, 2022 by sbkrivit
Two U.S. Department of Energy scientists with the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) plan to give a presentation on progress in nuclear fusion research at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society on Wednesday.
Samuel E. Wurzel serves as a technology-to-market advisor for ARPA-E. Scott C. Hsu serves as a program director for the agency.
Samuel E. Wurzel (l) and Scott C. Hsu (r)
On May 23, 2021, Wurzel and Hsu published a preprint of peak triple-product values from many fusion reactor types. The caption of their graph explains that the displayed values are those “that set a record for a given [reactor] concept vs. year achieved.”
New Energy Times examined only the experiments in the tokamak reactor design category. The graph below isolates only experiments from that category.
However, although Wurzel and Hsu displayed values for non-tokamak concepts through the year 2017, they omitted all data in the tokamak category from 1995 onward.
Table 2 from Version 1 of their pre-print, which appears as Table VI in Version 3 of their pre-print, provides an extensive list of fusion experiments performed in tokamak reactors. Wurzel and Hsu excluded all tokamak experiments beyond 1995.
For a more accurate and honest display of progress in nuclear fusion in the last 70 years, New Energy Times published a report for readers — and investors — called “When Will We Get Energy From Nuclear Fusion?”
The latter part of that report presents a preliminary discussion of the awkward fact that one of the two required fuel sources for fusion — tritium — does not exist as a natural resource on Earth. This fact casts a dark cloud over the long-running sensationalist claims that the fuel for fusion is virtually unlimited.
A subsequent New Energy Timesreport provides the full discussion of the fusion fuel limitation.
#90 U.S. Department of Energy Scientists Will Give Presentation on Fusion Energy Progress was last modified: April 16th, 2022 by sbkrivit
The ITER organization has confirmed that the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is not designed to produce net power. This disclosure comes four years after articles in New Energy Times revealed that the ITER design is equivalent to a zero-net-power reactor.
In an article in the French newspaper Le Canard Enchainé last week, Michel Claessens, the former ITER organization spokesman, explained the ITER power discrepancy.
“For many years, it was claimed that the reactor will generate ten times the power injected. It is completely wrong. Thanks to a patient investigation, the American journalist Steven Krivit showed that ITER will consume as much [power] as it will generate,” Claessens said. “We know now that the net [power] balance will be close to zero.”
The newspaper asked the ITER organization for a response. The organization sent an official but unsigned response, provided under the direction of the current ITER spokesman, Laban Coblentz.
“It is obvious that all the systems of the ITER installation will consume more energy than produced by the plasma,” the ITER organization said.
To the contrary, the widespread understanding, as shown by these citations from academic institutions, fusion industry partners, government agencies, energy organizations, encyclopedia articles, and the news media, has been that the overall reactor system is designed to produce net power. Here are a few examples:
“[ITER’s] design is a scaled-up version of JET, and the scientists here want to produce 500 megawatts of power, 10 times its predicted input.” (The Guardian, Jan. 25, 2015)
“ITER should be completed in 15-20 years and claims to deliver 500 MW of power, about the same as today’s large fission reactors.” (The Guardian, Oct. 17, 2016)
“The plan is to create 500 megawatts of usable energy from an input of 50 megawatts.” (New Scientist, June 15, 2021)
“The energy released by the machine should be roughly ten times the power it consumes.” (Nature, May 6, 2010)
“If all goes to plan, ITER will release ten times the power it consumes, sometime after 2026.” (Nature, Nov. 12, 2010)
“[ITER] an experimental reactor designed to use nuclear fusion to generate ten times the power that is put in.” (Nature, July 31, 2014)
“[ITER] is predicted to produce about 500 megawatts of electricity.” (Nature, May 26, 2016)
“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.” (New York Times— March 27, 2017)
“ITER aims to produce 500 megawatts of power, 10 times the amount needed to keep it running.” (Science, Oct. 13, 2006)
“The international demonstration is aiming to generate about 10 times its input power.” (Science, 21, 2017)
“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.” (Science, 6, 2020)
The Long History
The false notion that the ITER reactor is designed to produce more power than it consumes goes back decades. A screen capture of the organization’s Web site from Jan. 21, 1998, shows that the organization said that “ITER will be the first fusion reactor to produce thermal energy at the level of a commercial power station.”
Image capture of ITER organization home page, Jan. 21, 1998 (Courtesy Archive.org)
For the next two decades, the core message from the ITER organization regarding the objective of the project was communicated as shown in this screen capture below.
False claims made by the ITER organization, as published on its Web site, before Oct. 6, 2017 (Click here to see ITER organization’s correction soon after Oct. 5, 2017)
Here are the facts.
JET, the Joint European Torus fusion reactor, produced 16 megawatts of thermal power for a tenth of a second from 24 megawatts of heating power injected into the reaction chamber to heat the fuel. It also required additional power to operate — a total of 700 megawatts of electricity. This fact was publicly unknown before I contacted the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority in 2014.
ITER is designed to produce fusion reactions with 500 megawatts of thermal power from 50 megawatts of heating power that will be injected into the reaction chamber to heat the fuel. This is its primary measurable scientific goal. (More technically, it is the kinetic energy of the particles that could be converted in heat.)
To accomplish this, the reactor will require 500 megawatts of electrical power to initiate the fusion reactions. The reactor will need 300 to 400 megawatts of electrical power throughout the experiment to produce the fusion reactions. If the reactor accomplishes its scientific goal, the overall reactor will not produce any net power or demonstrate a power gain. ITER is a zero-net-power reactor design. These facts were generally unknown and undisclosed to the public before I published this report on Oct. 6, 2017. Citations and scientific references are available on the New Energy TimesITER Power Research and Analysis Web page.
Why were the full input power requirements for these reactors not publicly disclosed by the fusion community? Why didn’t fusion scientists ensure that the public claims by their organizations were accurate and honest? Why did fusion scientists allow these discrepancies and misunderstandings to go on, decade after decade? The New Energy Times documentary film “ITER, The Grand Illusion: A Forensic Investigation of Power Claims” answers these questions.
To this day, the ITER organization’s Web site continues to publish misleading statements about the primary measurable objective of the project, implying that the reactor itself is designed for a tenfold gain in power.
No Misunderstanding?
Journalist Grant Hill asked Coblentz earlier this year about the incorrect statements people have made about the ITER reactor power values. Coblentz said that he believes that most people understand that the ITER reactor is designed for a gain involving only the physics reactions, rather than the overall reactor.
“I don’t think there is a gigantic public deception or misconception,” Coblentz said.
For most of the past decade, prominent news organizations including The Guardian, Nature Magazine, Science Magazine and The New York Times, published significantly incorrect statements about the expected result of the ITER reactor. In most cases, the news organizations wrote that the overall reactor, not just the physics reactions, is designed for a tenfold power gain.
Coblentz told Hill that the ITER organization had made efforts to reach out to publications and journalists when it felt that journalists had misunderstood the power values. New Energy Times has compiled a list of more than 100 news articles that published the wrong power values. Gizmodo recently made a correction after one of our editors contacted the magazine in October. After New Energy Times contacted the National Law Review in 2020, the journal made a correction. After New Energy Times sent a comment to Nature magazine in 2017, the magazine made a correction. We are not aware of any other corrections to any of the 100-plus news articles that incorrectly stated the ITER design specification.
When Hill watched the New Energy Times documentary film, he saw that members of U.S. Congress, just like the journalists, had misunderstood the primary measurable objective of the ITER reactor.
During a congressional hearing on ITER in 2014, California Rep. Eric Swallwell said, “ITER is designed to produce at least 10 times the energy it consumes.” Texas Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson said that fusion scientists are “confident it is now possible to actually build a full-scale test reactor that produces far more energy than it uses.”
Coblentz told Hill that he was confident that the legislators correctly understood the goals of the project but intentionally made “simplifications” when they spoke during the hearing.
State of Confusion
Despite the fact that the ITER organization informed Le Canard Enchainé last week that it is “obvious” that the overall ITER reactor will not produce power at a greater rate than it consumes power, subscribers of the popular French science magazine Science & Vie last week read a contradictory statement from Alain Bécoulet, the head of engineering at the ITER organization.
Bécoulet said the ITER machine is designed to demonstrate a tenfold power gain, producing a 500-megawatt output from a 50 megawatt input:
French: “Cette machine expérimentale va permettre de démontrer que la production continue de 500 MW est possible,” Alain Bécoulet said. Soit un rendement de 1000%!
English: “This experimental machine will enable the demonstration that continuous production of 500 MW is possible,” Alain Bécoulet said. Giving a gain of 1000%!
Alain Bécoulet
Contrary to Bécoulet’s claim, the machine, if it accomplishes its scientific goal, will end up with zero net power and zero gain. Contrary to Bécoulet’s claim, at the target output rate of 500 megawatts, the machine is not designed for continuous production of thermal power. Instead, it is designed to operate for about 500 seconds.
Incorrect information from senior ITER organization staff members is nothing new. A year ago, we reported that Tim Luce, the chief scientist for the ITER organization, was regularly telling journalists, “We plan to produce 500 megawatts with 50 megawatts of consumption.”
In the summer of 2017, we presented the discrepancies between the power facts and the power claims on the ITER organization’s Web site to David Campbell, the previous chief scientist for the organization. One month later, he submitted his resignation.
And just last week, hours after Le Canard Enchainé published the ITER organization’s confirmation that ITER is a zero-net-power reactor design, Bigot testified before the French Senate Committee on Economic Affairs, telling the senators that the overall ITER reactor is expected to demonstrate a gain of three to five times the power it will consume. (Click here for that news story.)
Understandably, members of the ITER organization may need some time to agree on a consistent set of messages.
Wall display in the ITER headquarters building. (Photo: Celia Izoard)
#88E ITER Organization Concedes Reactor Is Not Designed for Net Power Production was last modified: April 16th, 2022 by sbkrivit
Contradicting his public relations office on the same day, Bernard Bigot, director-general of the ITER organization, claims reactor is designed for net power production, a 300% gain.
The leader of the world’s largest fusion experiment testified falsely before the French Senate’s Committee on Economic Affairs last week.
On Oct. 27, 2021, during a hearing of the French Senate’s Committee on Economic Affairs, Bernard Bigot made false and exaggerated claims about the expected power output for ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, under construction in the south of France.
Bigot, who is a theoretical chemist, spoke during his 40-minute presentation about climate change and fossil fuel depletion, explained the concept of nuclear fusion, then spoke about ITER.
At the end, Bigot said that, if he lives long enough, he will see the ITER reactor produce 10 times the power it will consume:
French: Et c’est en 2035, si Dieu me prête vie, que je verrai, effectivement, dix fois plus d’énergie, qu’effectivement il n’en sera consommé.
English: And it’s in 2035, if God lends me life; that I will see, effectively, ten times more energy than it will be consumed.
Nothing in the surrounding wording or context of Bigot’s statement informed the senators that he was talking only about the physics reaction. (Because ITER values are always given in terms of megawatts, the correct term is power, not energy.)
After his presentation, Bigot responded to questions from the senators. French Senator Christian Redon-Sarrazy referred to Bigot’s claim of a tenfold reactor power gain and asked for clarification:
French:Le facteur d’amplification dont vous nous avez parlé tout à l’heure, qui est de dix, ne concernerait que la réaction elle-même et n’intégrerait pas l’ensemble de l’énergie totale nécessaire au fonctionnement global du projet. Donc, même si ces consommations peuvent dépendre de la configuration des systèmes utilisés pour chaque expérience, pouvez-vous nous donner une estimation crédible et actualisée de ces différentes consommations?
English: The amplification factor that you mentioned earlier, which is ten, would only concern the reaction itself and would not include all the total energy necessary for the overall operation of the project. So, even though these consumptions may depend on the configuration of the systems used for each experiment, can you give us a credible, updated estimation of these different consumptions?
In response to this technical and precise question from the senator, Bigot changed his answer. Rather than a tenfold gain in power, he told the senators, the overall ITER reactor is expected to demonstrate a gain of three to five times the power it will consume:
French: Je produis dix fois plus de chaleur avec le plasma que je n’en injecte pour maintenir sa température, par contre, j’ai des compresseurs, j’ai effectivement, tout un système de consommation d’énergie. Donc, in fine, actuellement, le rendement sera entre trois et cinq, three et five. Aujourd’hui, si je peux me permettre, ce réacteur se veut modeste, je crois qu’il est établi du point de vue de la physique, que le facteur dix est atteignable avec ITER.
English: I produce ten times more heat with the plasma than I inject to maintain its temperature, on the other hand, I have compressors, I have indeed, a whole system of energy consumption. So, at the end of the day, the efficiency will be between three and five, three and five. Today, if I may say so, this reactor is intended to be modest, I believe that it has been established from the physics point of view that a factor of ten is achievable with ITER.
None of his answers was correct. The projected gain for the overall reactor is not ten, not five, not three, but about one.
Power Facts
New Energy Times first reported that the ITER design is equivalent to a power gain of one, that is, no power amplification, a zero-net-power reactor, four years ago.
ITER is designed to produce fusion reactions with 500 megawatts of thermal power from 50 megawatts of heating power that will be injected into the reaction chamber to heat the fuel. This is its primary measurable scientific goal. (More technically, the 500 megawatts is the kinetic energy of the produced particles that could be converted into heat.)
To accomplish this, the reactor will require 500 megawatts of electrical power to initiate the fusion reactions. The reactor will need 300 to 400 megawatts of electrical power throughout the experiment to produce the fusion reactions. If the reactor accomplishes its scientific goal, the overall reactor will not produce any net power or demonstrate a power gain. Thus, ITER is a zero-net-power reactor design. Citations and scientific references are available on the New Energy TimesITER Power Research and Analysis Web page.
Asked Again
Later in the discussion, Senator Franck Montaugé asked a similar question: “What is the true performance of an industrial facility like this?”
Bigot explained that when he talks about a power gain of 10, he is only talking about the physics gain, the plasma gain, not the overall reactor. For the overall reactor gain, Bigot said it is designed to produce three times the power the reactor will consume:
French: Le rendement dont je parle c’est le rendement entre l’énergie injectée dans le plasma pour maintenir sa température de 150 millions afin d’assurer que le plasma va être auto-entretenu avec, donc, la contribution de l’hélium produit par la réaction de fusion et la production de chaleur. C’est un rapport de quantité de chaleur, de l’énergie injectée dans le plasma et produite par le plasma. Ce n’est qu’un composant du rendement total. Le rendement total, comme je l’ai évoqué, sur ITER, il sera de l’ordre de trois. Je produirai trois fois plus d’énergie que j’en consommerai globalement.
English: The efficiency I’m talking about is the efficiency between the energy injected into the plasma to maintain its temperature of 150 million in order to ensure that the plasma will be self-sustaining with, therefore, the contribution of the helium produced by the fusion reaction and the production of heat. It is a ratio of the amount of heat, of the energy injected into the plasma and produced by the plasma. It is only one component of the total efficiency. The total efficiency, as I mentioned, on ITER, it will be about three. I will produce three times more energy than I will consume globally.
That’s just not true. The reactor is expected to consume an input of 300 to 400 megawatts of electrical power throughout the experiment to produce 500 MW of thermal power. At best, that’s a gain of 1.6. But as a demonstration of industrial capacity, the thermal output must be calculated as electrical output. A 500 MW thermal output equals a 200 MW electric output. That’s 100 MW less than the reactor will consume. Therefore, as an industrial demonstration, the ITER reactor would produce no power gain.
The reactor is not designed for demonstration of industrial fusion performance. The problem, however, is that that is exactly what proponents of fusion and the ITER project have been claiming about ITER for more than two decades.
In 1998, the ITER organization claimed on its Web site that “ITER will be the first fusion reactor to produce thermal energy at the level of a commercial power station.” In a Dec. 6, 2017, press release, the ITER organization claimed that ITER is “a project to prove that fusion power can be produced on a commercial scale.”
Therefore, considering the history, Senator Montaugé’s question was entirely appropriate. For example, the French newspaper Le Parisien, told its readers what the ITER Web site had said:
Le Parisien, translated, Feb. 5, 2019
Le Parisien, Feb. 5, 2019
Bigot Knew
As a result of what I learned in 2014 about the power requirement for ITER’s predecessor, the Joint European Torus reactor, I knew that the claimed and universally cited 50-megawatt value could not represent the total required input power rate for the ITER reactor. I wrote to Bigot about the false power claims on his organization’s Web site on May 1, 2017. He did not reply. His organization did not make any corrections.
On Oct. 6, 2017, after several months of investigation, with the help of fusion scientists Daniel Jassby, Hartmut Zohm, and Steve Cowley, I published my analysis, in which I explained that the real input power-rate specification for the ITER reactor was at least 300 megawatts. My research confirmed what I had found on the Japanese government Web site: “ITER is about equivalent to a zero-net-power reactor, when the plasma is burning.”
By November 2017, Bigot and his organization began making corrections on the ITER organization’s Web site. In December, they issued a press release and omitted their previous claims that the ITER reactor was designed to consume only 50 megawatts of input power to produce a 500-megawatt thermal power output, a tenfold gain.
Instead, the press release said that the ITER reactor is designed “to prove that fusion power can be produced on a commercial scale.” With a net-power-output rate of about zero, ITER, if it proves anything, will prove the opposite.
In the following months, after I contacted international science, government, and industry organizations that also had false or misleading ITER power claims on their Web sites, they, too, made corrections.
On March 28, 2018, I reported that Bigot made misleading claims when he testified before members of the U.S. Congress. Within hours, the ITER organization corrected more of the false fusion claims on its Web site. (Bigot had done so in 2016, as well.)
I wrote to Bigot again on June 17, 2018, and explained the remaining misleading statements and claims on the ITER organization’s Web site. To my knowledge, he and his staff made no further corrections.
On July 28, 2018, Bigot’s organization issued a press release with false claims:
How much power will the ITER Tokamak provide? The plant at ITER will produce about 500 megawatts of thermal power. If operated continuously and connected to the electric grid, that would translate to about 200 megawatts of electric power, enough for about 200,000 homes.
That’s what the French newspaper Le Parisien told its readers the same day:
Le Parisien, translated, July 28, 2020
Le Parisien, July 28, 2020
After I wrote to Bigot and two members of his public relations team, they removed that press release from their Web site. I explained the details at the bottom of this news story.
The ITER organization has not issued a correction to the press release.
Transcription and translation assistance credit: M.Z. and Th.P.
#89E ITER Director-General Makes False Power Claim to French Senate was last modified: April 16th, 2022 by sbkrivit
Contredisant son service de relations publiques le même jour, Bernard Bigot, directeur général de l’organisation ITER, affirme que le réacteur est conçu pour une production nette de puissance avec un gain de 300 %
Le leader de la plus grande expérience de fusion au monde a faussement témoigné devant la commission des affaires économiques du Sénat français la semaine dernière.
Le 27 Oct. 2021, lors d’une audition de la Commission des Affaires Économiques du Sénat Français, Bernard Bigot a fait des déclarations fausses et exagérées sur la puissance attendue du réacteur ITER, le réacteur thermonucléaire expérimental international, en construction dans le sud de la France.
Monsieur Bigot, qui est un chimiste théoricien, a parlé lors de sa présentation de 40 minutes sur le changement climatique et l’épuisement des combustibles fossiles, a expliqué le concept de fusion nucléaire, puis a parlé d’ITER.
A la fin, Bigot a déclaré que, s’il vit assez longtemps, il verra le réacteur ITER produire 10 fois plus d’énergie qu’il n’en consommera :
Et c’est en 2035, si Dieu me prête vie, que je verrai, effectivement, dix fois plus d’énergie, qu’effectivement il n’en sera consommé.
Rien dans le libellé ou le contexte de la déclaration de M. Bigot n’a informé les sénateurs qu’il ne parlait que de la réaction physique. (Parce que les valeurs ITER sont toujours données en termes de mégawatts, le terme correct est puissance, non pas énergie.)
Après sa présentation, M. Bigot a répondu aux questions des sénateurs. Le sénateur français Christian Redon-Sarrazy a fait référence à l’affirmation de M. Bigot d’un gain de puissance du réacteur décuplé et a demandé des éclaircissements :
Le facteur d’amplification dont vous nous avez parlé tout à l’heure, qui est de dix, ne concernerait que la réaction elle-même et n’intégrerait pas l’ensemble de l’énergie totale nécessaire au fonctionnement global du projet. Donc, même si ces consommations peuvent dépendre de la configuration des systèmes utilisés pour chaque expérience, pouvez-vous nous donner une estimation crédible et actualisée de ces différentes consommations?
En réponse à cette question technique et précise du sénateur, M. Bigot a modifié sa réponse. Plutôt qu’un gain de puissance décuplé, a-t-il déclaré aux sénateurs, le réacteur global ITER devrait démontrer un gain de trois à cinq fois la puissance qu’il consommera. Les mots exacts de M. Bigot, tels que traduits du français, sont les suivants :
French: Je produis dix fois plus de chaleur avec le plasma que je n’en injecte pour maintenir sa température, par contre, j’ai des compresseurs, j’ai effectivement, tout un système de consommation d’énergie. Donc, in fine, actuellement, le rendement sera entre trois et cinq, three et five. Aujourd’hui, si je peux me permettre, ce réacteur se veut modeste, je crois qu’il est établi du point de vue de la physique, que le facteur dix est atteignable avec ITER.
Aucune de ses réponses n’était correcte. Le gain prévu pour l’ensemble du réacteur n’est pas de dix, ni de cinq, ni de trois, mais d’environ un.
Faits Sur la Puissance
New Energy Times a signalé pour la première fois que la conception d’ITER équivaut à un gain de puissance de un, c’est à dire sans amplification de puissance, un réacteur à puissance nette nulle, il y a quatre ans.
ITER est conçu pour produire des réactions de fusion de 500 mégawatts de puissance thermique à partir de 50 mégawatts de puissance de chauffage qui seront injectés dans la chambre de réaction pour chauffer le combustible. C’est son principal objectif scientifique mesurable. (En fait l’énergie cinétique des particules produites pourrait être convertie en chaleur.)
Pour ce faire, le réacteur aura besoin de 500 mégawatts d’énergie électrique pour initier les réactions de fusion. Le réacteur aura besoin de 300 à 400 mégawatts de puissance électrique tout au long de l’expérience pour produire les réactions de fusion. Si le réacteur atteint son objectif scientifique, l’ensemble du réacteur ne produira pas de puissance nette ou ne démontrera pas de gain de puissance. Ainsi, ITER est une conception de réacteur à puissance nette nulle. Des citations et des références scientifiques sont disponibles sur la page Web ITER Power Research and Analysis du New Energy Times.
Demandé à Nouveau
Plus tard dans la discussion, le sénateur Franck Montaugé a posé une question similaire : « Quelles sont les vraies performances d’une installation industrielle comme celle-ci ? »
Bigot a expliqué que lorsqu’il parle d’un gain de puissance de 10, il ne parle que du gain physique, du gain plasma, pas du réacteur global. Pour le gain global du réacteur, M. Bigot a déclaré qu’il est conçu pour produire trois fois la puissance que le réacteur consommera :
Le rendement dont je parle c’est le rendement entre l’énergie injectée dans le plasma pour maintenir sa température de 150 millions afin d’assurer que le plasma va être auto-entretenu avec, donc, la contribution de l’hélium produit par la réaction de fusion et la production de chaleur. C’est un rapport de quantité de chaleur, de l’énergie injectée dans le plasma et produite par le plasma. Ce n’est qu’un composant du rendement total. Le rendement total, comme je l’ai évoqué, sur ITER, il sera de l’ordre de trois. Je produirai trois fois plus d’énergie que j’en consommerai globalement.
Ce n’est tout simplement pas vrai. Le réacteur devrait consommer 300 à 400 mégawatts de puissance électrique tout au long de l’expérience pour produire 500 MW de puissance thermique. Au mieux, c’est un gain de 1,6. Mais en tant que démonstration de capacité industrielle, la puissance thermique doit être calculée en tant que puissance électrique. Une puissance thermique de 500 MW équivaut à une puissance électrique de 200 MW électrique. C’est 100 MW de moins que ce que le réacteur consommera. Ainsi, à titre de démonstration industrielle, le réacteur ITER ne produirait aucun gain de puissance.
Le réacteur n’est pas conçu pour la démonstration des performances de fusion industrielle. Le problème, cependant, est que c’est exactement ce que les partisans de la fusion et du projet ITER revendiquent à propos d’ITER depuis plus de deux décennies.
En 1998, l’organisation ITER a affirmé sur son site Web qu’« ITER sera le premier réacteur à fusion à produire de l’énergie thermique au niveau d’une centrale électrique commerciale ». Dans un communiqué de presse du 6 Décembre 2017, l’organisation ITER a affirmé qu’ITER est “un projet visant à prouver que l’énergie de fusion peut être produite à une échelle commerciale”.
Donc, compte tenu de l’historique, la question du sénateur Montaugé était tout à fait appropriée. Par exemple, le journal français Le Parisien a dit à ses lecteurs ce que le site Web d’ITER avait dit :
Le Parisien, 5 Feb. 2019
Bigot savait
À la suite de ce que j’ai appris sur les besoins en puissance du prédécesseur d’ITER, le réacteur Joint European Torus en 2014, je savais que la valeur de 50 mégawatts revendiquée et universellement citée ne pouvait pas représenter le niveau de puissance d’entrée totale requise pour le réacteur ITER. J’ai écrit à M. Bigot au sujet des fausses allégations de puissance sur le site Web de son organisation le 1er mai 2017. Il n’a pas répondu. Son organisation n’a apporté aucune correction.
Le 6 Oct. 2017, après plusieurs mois d’enquête, avec l’aide des spécialistes de la fusion Daniel Jassby, Hartmut Zohm et Steve Cowley, j’ai publié mon analyse, dans laquelle j’expliquais que la spécification réelle du taux de puissance d’entrée pour le réacteur ITER était d’au moins 300 mégawatts. Mes recherches ont confirmé ce que j’avais trouvé sur le site Web du gouvernement Japonais : « ITER équivaut à peu près à un réacteur à puissance nette nulle, lorsque le plasma brûle. »
En Novembre 2017, M. Bigot et son organisation ont commencé à apporter des corrections sur le site Web de l’organisation ITER. En décembre, ils ont publié un communiqué de presse et omis leurs affirmations précédentes selon lesquelles le réacteur ITER était conçu pour ne consommer que 50 mégawatts de puissance d’entrée pour produire une puissance thermique de 500 mégawatts, un gain de dix fois.
Au lieu de cela, le communiqué de presse a déclaré que le réacteur ITER est conçu “pour prouver que l’énergie de fusion peut être produite à une échelle commerciale”. Avec un taux de sortie de puissance nette d’environ zéro, ITER, s’il prouve quelque chose, prouvera le contraire.
Au cours des mois suivants, après avoir contacté des organisations scientifiques, gouvernementales et industrielles internationales qui avaient également des allégations de puissance ITER fausses ou trompeuses sur leurs sites Web, elles ont également apporté des corrections.
Le 28 Mars 2018, j’ai signalé que M. Bigot avait fait des déclarations trompeuses lorsqu’il a témoigné devant des membres du Congrès américain. En quelques heures, l’organisation ITER a corrigé davantage de fausses allégations de fusion sur son site Web. (M. Bigot l’avait fait en 2016, également.)
J’ai de nouveau écrit à M. Bigot le 17 Juin 2018 et lui ai expliqué les déclarations et affirmations trompeuses restantes sur le site Web de l’organisation ITER. À ma connaissance, lui et son personnel n’ont apporté aucune autre correction.
Le 28 Juillet 2018, l’organisation dirigée par M. Bigot a publié un communiqué de presse contenant de fausses allégations :
Quelle puissance le tokamak ITER fournira-t-il ? La centrale d’ITER produira environ 500 mégawatts d’énergie thermique. S’il fonctionnait en continu et était connecté au réseau électrique, cela se traduirait par environ 200 mégawatts d’énergie électrique, suffisant pour environ 200 000 foyers.
C’est ce que le journal français Le Parisien a dit à ses lecteurs le même jour :
Le Parisien, July 28, 2020
Après avoir écrit à M. Bigot et à deux membres de son équipe de relations publiques, ils ont supprimé ce communiqué de presse de leur site Web. J’ai expliqué les détails au bas de cette nouvelle.
L’organisation ITER n’a pas publié de correction au communiqué de presse.
Crédit d’aide à la transcription et à la traduction : M.Z. et Th.P.
#89F ITER: Le Directeur Général Fait une Fausse Déclaration sur le Réacteur à Fusion au Sénat Français was last modified: April 16th, 2022 by sbkrivit
