ITER partners agree on management team
The seven partners in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project have agreed on a management team for the project at a summit in Tokyo, Japan on April 1. The EU's candidate for nominee Principal Deputy Director-General and Project Construction Leader was approved by India, Japan, Korea, China, Russia and the US. Dr Norbert Holtkamp is German, and was previously head of the linear collider research group at DESY, the Germany electron synchrotron in Hamburg. Since 2001 he has been Director of the accelerator systems division of the Spallation Neutron Source under construction in Tennessee in the US. In November 2005 Kaname Ikeda from Japan was appointed as nominee Director-General. He has already taken up residence in Cadarache in preparation for the construction phase of the project. '[The] ITER project is well on the way to becoming a reality, with construction due to start soon at the agreed site of Cadarache in Southern France. The top management team will now press forward with building the international ITER Team,' stated the ITER team. The Tokyo meeting also concluded negotiations on the international agreement that will govern the project. The agreement will now be passed to ministers for initiating, and it is hoped that it will be finalised at a meeting planned for 24 May in Brussels. ITER will be an experimental facility for demonstrating the scientific and technical feasibility of fusion power - the process that powers the sun and the stars. When light atomic nuclei fuse together to form heavier ones, a large amount of energy is released. The technology could provide a solution to the current over-reliance on unsustainable energy resources. The construction costs of ITER are estimated to be 4.7 billion euro over ten years. Much of this money will go to industrial companies and fusion research institutions. Another five billion euro is foreseen for the 20-year exploitation period. Europe will contribute 45 per cent of the costs, while the other six parties will provide the remainder of the funding.
Countries
China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, United States