ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, iter meaning "the way" or "the path" in Latin) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject aimed at creating energy through a fusion process similar to that of the Sun. Upon completion of construction of the main reactor and first plasma, planned for late 2025, it will be the world's largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment and the largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. It is being built next to the Cadarache facility in southern France. ITER will be the largest of more than 100 fusion reactors built since the 1950s, with ten times the plasma volume of any other tokamak operating today.

The long-term goal of fusion research is to generate electricity. ITER's stated purpose is scientific research, and technological demonstration of a large fusion reactor, without electricity generation. ITER's goals are to achieve enough fusion to produce 10 times as much thermal output power as thermal power absorbed by the plasma for short time periods; to demonstrate and test technologies that would be needed to operate a fusion power plant including cryogenics, heating, control and diagnostics systems, and remote maintenance; to achieve and learn from a burning plasma; to test tritium breeding; and to demonstrate the safety of a fusion plant.

ITER's thermonuclear fusion reactor will use over 300 MW of electrical power to cause the plasma to absorb 50 MW of thermal power, creating 500 MW of heat from fusion for periods of 400 to 600 seconds. This would mean a ten-fold gain of plasma heating power (Q), as measured by heating input to thermal output, or Q ≥ 10. , the record for energy production using nuclear fusion is held by the National Ignition Facility reactor, which achieved a Q of 1.5 in December 2022. Beyond just heating the plasma, the total electricity consumed by the reactor and facilities will range from 110 MW up to 620 MW peak for 30-second periods during plasma operation. As a research reactor, the heat energy generated will not be converted to electricity, but simply vented.

ITER is funded and run by seven member parties: China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. The United Kingdom participates through EU's Fusion for Energy (F4E), Switzerland participates through Euratom and F4E, and the project has cooperation agreements with Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan and Thailand.

Construction of the ITER complex in France started in 2013, and assembly of the tokamak began in 2020. The initial budget was close to €6 billion, but the total price of construction and operations is projected to be from €18 to €22 billion; other estimates place the total cost between $45 billion and $65 billion, though these figures are disputed by ITER. Regardless of the final cost, ITER has already been described as the most expensive science experiment of all time, the most complicated engineering project in human history, and one of the most ambitious human collaborations since the development of the International Space Station (€100 billion or $150 billion budget) and the Large Hadron Collider (€7.5 billion budget).

ITER's planned successor, the EUROfusion-led DEMO, is expected to be one of the first fusion reactors to produce electricity in an experimental environment.

Background

Fusion aims to replicate the process that takes place in stars where the intense heat at the core fuses together nuclei and produces massive amounts of energy in the form of heat and light. Harnessing fusion power in terrestrial conditions would provide sufficient energy to satisfy mounting demand, and to do so in a sustainable manner that has a relatively small impact on the environment. One gram of deuterium-tritium fuel mixture in the process of nuclear fusion produces 90,000-kilowatt hours of energy, or the equivalent of 11 tonnes of coal.

Nuclear fusion uses a different approach from traditional nuclear energy. Current nuclear power stations rely on nuclear fission with the nucleus of an atom being split to release energy. Nuclear fusion takes multiple nuclei and uses intense heat to fuse them together, a process that also releases energy.

Nuclear fusion has many potential attractions. The fuel is relatively abundant or can be produced in a fusion reactor. After preliminary tests with deuterium, ITER will use a mix of deuterium-tritium for its fusion because of the combination's high energy potential and because this fusion reaction is the easiest to run. The first isotope, deuterium, can be extracted from seawater, from which it is a nearly inexhaustible resource. The second isotope, tritium, only occurs in trace amounts in nature and the estimated world's supply (mainly produced by the heavy-water CANDU fission reactors) is just 20 kilograms per year, insufficient for power plants. ITER will be testing tritium breeding blanket technology that would allow a future fusion reactor to create its own tritium and thus be self-sufficient. Furthermore, a fusion reactor would produce virtually no CO2 emissions or atmospheric pollutants, there would be no chance of a meltdown, and its radioactive waste products would mostly be very short-lived compared to those produced by conventional nuclear reactors (fission reactors).

On 21 November 2006, the seven project partners formally agreed to fund the creation of a nuclear fusion reactor. The program is anticipated to last for 30 years – 10 years for construction, and 20 years of operation. ITER was originally expected to cost approximately €5 billion. However, delays, the rising price of raw materials, and changes to the initial design have seen the official budget estimate rise to between €18 billion and €20 billion.

The reactor was expected to take 10 years to build, and ITER had planned to test its first plasma in 2020 and achieve full fusion by 2023, however the schedule is now to test first plasma in 2025 and full fusion in 2035. Site preparation has begun near Cadarache center, France, and French President Emmanuel Macron launched the assembly phase of the project at a ceremony in 2020. Under the revised schedule, work to achieve the first hydrogen plasma discharge was 70% complete in the middle of 2020 and considered to be on track.

One of the ITER objectives is a Q-value ("fusion gain") of 10. Q = 1 is called "breakeven". The best result achieved in a tokamak is 0.67 in the JET tokamak. The best result achieved for fusion in general is Q = 1.5, achieved in an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiment by the National Ignition Facility in late 2022.

For commercial fusion power stations, engineering gain factor is important. Engineering gain factor is defined as the ratio of a plant electrical power output to electrical power input of all plant's internal systems (tokamak external heating systems, electromagnets, cryogenics plant, diagnostics and control systems, etc.). Commercial fusion plants will be designed with engineering breakeven in mind (see DEMO). Some nuclear engineers consider a Q of 100 to be required for commercial fusion power stations to be viable.

ITER will not produce electricity. Producing electricity from thermal sources is a well known process (used in many power stations) and ITER will not run with significant fusion power output continuously. Adding electricity production to ITER would raise the cost of the project and bring no value for experiments on the tokamak. The DEMO-class reactors that are planned to  follow ITER are intended to demonstrate the net production of electricity.

One of the primary ITER objectives is to achieve a state of "burning plasma". Burning plasma is the state of the plasma when more than 50% of the energy received for plasma heating is received from fusion reactions (not from external sources). No fusion reactors had created a burning plasma until the competing NIF fusion project reached the milestone on 8 August 2021 using inertial confinement. At higher Q values, progressively bigger parts of plasma heating power will be produced by fusion reactions. This reduces the power needed from external heating systems at high Q values. The bigger a tokamak is, the more fusion-reaction-produced energy is preserved for internal plasma heating (and the less external heating is required), which also improves its Q-value. This is how ITER plans for its tokamak reactor to scale.

Organisation history

The initial international cooperation for a nuclear fusion project that was the foundation of ITER began in 1978 with the International Tokamak Reactor, or INTOR, which had four partners: the Soviet Union, the European Atomic Energy Community, the United States, and Japan. However, the INTOR project stalled until Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1985.  Gorbachev first revived interest in a collaborative fusion project in an October 1985 meeting with French President François Mitterrand, and then the idea was further developed in November 1985 at the Geneva Summit with Ronald Reagan.

Preparations for the Gorbachev-Reagan summit showed that there were no tangible agreements in the works for the summit. However, the ITER project was gaining momentum in political circles due to the quiet work being done by two physicists, the American scientist Alvin Trivelpiece who served as Director of the Office of Energy Research in the 1980s and the Russian scientist Evgeny Velikhov who would become head of the Kurchatov Institute for nuclear research. The two scientists both supported a project to construct a demonstration fusion reactor. At the time, magnetic fusion research was ongoing in Japan, Europe, the Soviet Union and the US, but Trivelpiece and Velikhov believed that taking the next step in fusion research would be beyond the budget of any of the key nations and that collaboration would be useful internationally.

Dr. Michael Robert, who is the director of International Programs of the Office of Fusion Energy at the US Department of Energy, explains that, 'In September 1985, I led a US science team to Moscow as part of our bilateral fusion activities. Velikhov proposed to me at lunch one day his idea of having the USSR and USA work together to proceed to a fusion reactor. My response was 'great idea', but from my position, I have no capability of pushing that idea upward to the President.'

This push for cooperation on nuclear fusion is cited as a key moment of science diplomacy, but nonetheless a major bureaucratic fight erupted in the US government over the project. One argument against collaboration was that the Soviets would use it to steal US technology and expertise. A second was symbolic and involved American criticism of how the Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov was being treated. Sakharov was an early proponent of the peaceful use of nuclear technology and along with Igor Tamm he developed the idea for the tokamak that is at the heart of nuclear fusion research. However, Sakharov also supported broader civil liberties in the Soviet Union, and his activism earned him both the 1975 Nobel peace prize and internal exile in Russia, which he opposed by going on multiple hunger strikes. The United States National Security Council convened a meeting under the direction of William Flynn Martin to discuss the nuclear fusion project that resulted in a consensus that the US should go forward with the project.

This led to nuclear fusion cooperation being discussed at the Geneva summit and release of a historic joint statement from Reagan and Gorbachev that emphasized, "the potential importance of the work aimed at utilizing controlled thermonuclear fusion for peaceful purposes and, in this connection, advocated the widest practicable development of international cooperation in obtaining this source of energy, which is essentially inexhaustible, for the benefit of all mankind." For the fusion community, this statement was a breakthrough, and it was reinforced when Reagan evoked the possibilities of nuclear fusion in a Joint Session of Congress later in the month.

As a result, collaboration on an international fusion experiment began to move forward. In October 1986 at the Reykjavik Summit, the so-called 'Quadripartite Initiative Committee' (Europe through the Euratom countries, Japan, USSR, and the US) was formed to oversee the development of the project. The year after, in March 1987, the Quadripartite Initiative Committee met at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters in Vienna. This meeting marked the launch of the conceptual design studies for the experimental reactors as well as the start of negotiations for operational issues such as the legal foundations for the peaceful use of fusion technology, the organizational structure and staffing, and the eventual location for the project. This meeting in Vienna was also where the project was baptized the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, although it was quickly referred to by its abbreviation alone and its Latin meaning of 'the way'.

Conceptual and engineering design phases were carried out under the auspices of the IAEA. The original technical objectives were established in 1992 and the original Engineering Design Activities (EDA) were completed in 1998. An acceptable, detailed design was validated in July 2001 to complete the extended EDA period, and the validated design then went through a Design Review that began November 2006 and concluded in December 2007. The design process was difficult with arguments over issues such as whether there should be circular cross sections for magnetic confinement or 'D' shaped cross sections. These issues were partly responsible for the United States temporarily exiting the project in 1998 before rejoining in 2003.

At this same time, the group of ITER partners was expanding, with China and South Korea joining the project in 2003 and India formally joined in 2005.

There was a heated competition to host the ITER project with the candidates narrowed down to two possible sites: France and Japan. Russia, China, and the European Union supported the choice of Cadarache in France, while the United States, South Korea, and Japan support the choice of Rokkasho in Japan. In June 2005, it was officially announced that ITER would be built in the South of France at the Cadarache site. The negotiations that led to the decision ended in a compromise between the EU and Japan, in that Japan was promised 20% of the research staff on the French location of ITER, as well as the head of the administrative body of ITER. In addition, it was agreed that 8% of the ITER construction budget would go to partner facilities that would be built in Japan.

On 21 November 2006, at a ceremony hosted by French President Jacques Chirac at the Élysée Palace in Paris, an international consortium signed a formal agreement to build the reactor. Initial work to clear the site for construction began in Cadarache in March 2007 and, once this agreement was ratified by all partners, the ITER Organization was officially established on 24 October 2007.

In 2016, Australia became the first non-member partner of the project. ITER signed a technical cooperation agreement with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), granting this country access to research results of ITER in exchange for the construction of selected parts of the ITER machine. In 2017, Kazakhstan signed a cooperation agreement that laid the groundwork for technical collaboration between the National Nuclear Center of the Republic of Kazakhstan and ITER. Most recently, after collaborating with ITER in the early stages of the project, Canada signed a cooperation agreement in 2020 with a focus on tritium and tritium-related equipment.

The project began its five-year assembly phase in July 2020, launched by the French President Emmanuel Macron in the presence of other members of the ITER project.

Directors-General

ITER is supervised by a governing body known as the ITER Council that is composed of representatives of the seven signatories to the ITER Agreement. The ITER Council is responsible for the overall direction of the organization and decides such issues as the budget.
The ITER Council also appoints the director-general of the project. There have been five directors-general so far:
 2005–2010: Kaname Ikeda
 2010–2015: Osamu Motojima
 2015–2022: Bernard Bigot
 2022: Eisuke Tada (acting)
 2022–present: Pietro Barabaschi
Bernard Bigot was appointed to reform the management and governance of the ITER project in 2015. In January 2019, the ITER Council voted unanimously to reappoint Bigot for a second five-year term. Bigot died on May 14, 2022 and his deputy Eisuke Tada took over leadership of ITER during the search process for the new director.

Objectives

ITER's stated mission is to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion power as a large-scale, carbon-free source of energy.
More specifically, the project has aims to:
 Momentarily produce a fusion plasma with thermal power ten times greater than the injected thermal power (a Q value of 10).
 Produce a steady-state plasma with a Q value greater than 5. (Q = 1 is scientific breakeven, as defined in fusion energy gain factor.)
 Maintain a fusion pulse for up to 8 minutes.
 Develop technologies and processes needed for a fusion power station — including superconducting magnets and remote handling (maintenance by robot).
 Verify tritium breeding concepts.
 Refine neutron shield / heat conversion technology (most of the energy in the D+T fusion reaction is released in the form of fast neutrons).
 Experiment with burning plasma state.
The objectives of the ITER project are not limited to creating the nuclear fusion device but are much broader, including building necessary technical, organizational, and logistical capabilities, skills, tools, supply chains, and culture enabling management of such megaprojects among participating countries, bootstrapping their local nuclear fusion industries.

Timeline and status

As of May 2021 ITER is near 75% complete toward first plasma. Start is scheduled for late 2025.

Delays were acknowledged in 2023, which would impact the target to create plasma by 2025, however it was hoped the 2035 full-fusion target could be maintained. A new schedule will be issued by the end of 2023.

The start of the project can be traced back to 1978 when the European Commission, Japan, United States, and USSR joined for the International Tokamak Reactor (INTOR) Workshop. This initiative was held under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency and its goals were to assess the readiness of magnetic fusion to move forward to the experimental power reactor (EPR) stage, to identify the additional R&D that must be undertaken, and to define the characteristics of such an EPR by means of a conceptual design. From 1978 to the middle of the 1980s, hundreds of fusion scientists and engineers in each participating country took part in a detailed assessment of the tokamak confinement system and the design possibilities for harnessing nuclear fusion energy.

In 1985, at the Geneva summit meeting in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev suggested to Ronald Reagan that the two countries jointly undertake the construction of a tokamak EPR as proposed by the INTOR Workshop. The ITER project was initiated in 1988.

Ground was broken in 2007 and construction of the ITER tokamak complex started in 2013.

Machine assembly was launched on 28 July 2020. The construction of the facility is expected to be completed in 2025 when commissioning of the reactor can commence and initial plasma experiments are scheduled to begin at the end of that year. When ITER becomes operational, it will be the largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment in use with a plasma volume of 840 cubic meters, surpassing the Joint European Torus by a factor of 8.

Reactor overview

When deuterium and tritium fuse, two nuclei come together to form a helium nucleus (an alpha particle), and a high-energy neutron.
 +  →  +  +
While nearly all stable isotopes lighter on the periodic table than iron-56 and nickel-62, which have the highest binding energy per nucleon, will fuse with some other isotope and release energy, deuterium and tritium are by far the most attractive for energy generation as they require the lowest activation energy (thus lowest temperature) to do so, while producing among the most energy per unit weight.

All proto- and mid-life stars radiate enormous amounts of energy generated by fusion processes. Mass for mass, the deuterium–tritium fusion process releases roughly three times as much energy as uranium-235 fission, and millions of times more energy than a chemical reaction such as the burning of coal. It is the goal of a fusion power station to harness this energy to produce electricity.

Activation energies (in most fusion systems this is the temperature required to initiate the reaction) for fusion reactions are generally high because the protons in each nucleus will tend to strongly repel one another, as they each have the same positive charge. A heuristic for estimating reaction rates is that nuclei must be able to get within 100 femtometers (1 × 10−13 meter) of each other, where the nuclei are increasingly likely to undergo quantum tunneling past the electrostatic barrier and the turning point where the strong nuclear force and the electrostatic force are equally balanced, allowing them to fuse. In ITER, this distance of approach is made possible by high temperatures and magnetic confinement. ITER uses cooling equipment like a cryopump to cool the magnets to close to absolute zero. High temperatures give the nuclei enough energy to overcome their electrostatic repulsion (see Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution). For deuterium and tritium, the optimal reaction rates occur at temperatures higher than 100 million °C. At ITER, the plasma will be heated to 150 million °C (about ten times the temperature at the core of the Sun) by ohmic heating (running a current through the plasma). Additional heating is applied using neutral beam injection (which cross magnetic field lines without a net deflection and will not cause a large electromagnetic disruption) and radio frequency (RF) or microwave heating.

At such high temperatures, particles have a large kinetic energy, and hence velocity. If unconfined, the particles will rapidly escape, taking the energy with them, cooling the plasma to the point where net energy is no longer produced. A successful reactor would need to contain the particles in a small enough volume for a long enough time for much of the plasma to fuse.
In ITER and many other magnetic confinement reactors, the plasma, a gas of charged particles, is confined using magnetic fields. A charged particle moving through a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to the direction of travel, resulting in centripetal acceleration, thereby confining it to move in a circle or helix around the lines of magnetic flux. ITER will use four types of magnets to contain the plasma: a central solenoid magnet, poloidal magnets around the edges of the tokamak, 18 D-shaped toroidal-field coils, and correction coils.

A solid confinement vessel is also needed, both to shield the magnets and other equipment from high temperatures and energetic photons and particles, and to maintain a near-vacuum for the plasma to populate. The containment vessel is subjected to a barrage of very energetic particles, where electrons, ions, photons, alpha particles, and neutrons constantly bombard it and degrade the structure. The material must be designed to endure this environment so that a power station would be economical. Tests of such materials will be carried out both at ITER and at IFMIF (International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility).

Once fusion has begun, high-energy neutrons will radiate from the reactive regions of the plasma, crossing magnetic field lines easily due to charge neutrality (see neutron flux). Since it is the neutrons that receive the majority of the energy, they will be ITER's primary source of energy output. Ideally, alpha particles will expend their energy in the plasma, further heating it.

The inner wall of the containment vessel will have 440 blanket modules that are designed to slow and absorb neutrons in a reliable and efficient manner and therefore protect the steel structure and the superconducting toroidal field magnets.  At later stages of the ITER project, experimental blanket modules will be used to test breeding tritium for fuel from lithium-bearing ceramic pebbles contained within the blanket module following the following reactions:
 +  →  +
 +  →  +  +
where the reactant neutron is supplied by the D-T fusion reaction.

Energy absorbed from the fast neutrons is extracted and passed into the primary coolant. This heat energy would then be used to power an electricity-generating turbine in a real power station; in ITER this electricity generating system is not of scientific interest, so instead the heat will be extracted and disposed of.

Technical design

Vacuum vessel

The vacuum vessel is the central part of the ITER machine: a double-walled steel container in which the plasma is contained by means of magnetic fields.

The ITER vacuum vessel will be twice as large and 16 times as heavy as any previously manufactured fusion vessel: each of the nine torus-shaped sectors will weigh approximately 450 tonnes. When all the shielding and port structures are included, this adds up to a total of 5,116 tonnes. Its external diameter will measure , the internal . Once assembled, the whole structure will be  high.

The primary function of the vacuum vessel is to provide a hermetically sealed plasma container. Its main components are the main vessel, the port structures and the supporting system. The main vessel is a double-walled structure with poloidal and toroidal stiffening ribs between  shells to reinforce the vessel structure. These ribs also form the flow passages for the cooling water. The space between the double walls will be filled with shield structures made of stainless steel. The inner surfaces of the vessel will act as the interface with breeder modules containing the breeder blanket component. These modules will provide shielding from the high-energy neutrons produced by the fusion reactions and some will also be used for tritium breeding concepts.

The vacuum vessel has a total of 44 openings that are known as ports – 18 upper, 17 equatorial, and 9 lower ports – that will be used for remote handling operations, diagnostic systems, neutral beam injections and vacuum pumping. Remote handling is made necessary by the radioactive interior of the reactor following a shutdown, which is caused by neutron bombardment during operation.

Vacuum pumping will be done before the start of fusion reactions to create the necessary low density environment, which is about one million times lower than the density of air.

Breeder blanket
ITER will use a deuterium-tritium fuel, and while deuterium is abundant in nature, tritium is much rarer because it is a hydrogen isotope with a half-life of just 12.3 years and there is only approximately 3.5 kilograms of natural tritium on earth. Owing to this limited terrestrial supply of tritium, a key component of the ITER reactor design is the breeding blanket. This component, located adjacent to the vacuum vessel, serves to produce tritium through reaction with neutrons from the plasma. There are several reactions that produce tritium within the blanket. Lithium-6 produces tritium via (n,t) reactions with moderated neutrons, while Lithium-7 produces tritium via interactions with higher energy neutrons via (n,nt) reactions.

Concepts for the breeder blanket include helium-cooled lithium lead (HCLL), helium-cooled pebble bed (HCPB), and water-cooled lithium lead (WCLL) methods. Six different tritium breeding systems, known as Test Blanket Modules (TBM), will be tested in ITER and will share a common box geometry. Materials for use as breeder pebbles in the HCPB concept include lithium metatitanate and lithium orthosilicate. Requirements of breeder materials include good tritium production and extraction, mechanical stability and low levels of radioactive activation.

Magnet system
ITER is based on magnetic confinement fusion that uses magnetic fields to contain the fusion fuel in plasma form. The magnet system used in the ITER tokamak will be the largest superconducting magnet system ever built. The system will use four types of magnets to achieve plasma confinement: a central solenoid magnet, poloidal magnets, toroidal-field coils, and correction coils. The central solenoid coil will be 18 meters tall, 4.3 meters wide, and weigh 1000 tonnes. It will use superconducting niobium-tin to carry 45 kA and produce a peak field of more than 13 teslas.

The 18 toroidal field coils will also use niobium-tin. They are the most powerful superconductive magnets ever designed with a nominal peak field strength of 11.8 teslas and a stored magnetic energy of 41 gigajoules. Other lower field ITER magnets (poloidal field and correction coils) will use niobium-titanium for their superconducting elements.

Additional heating
To achieve fusion, plasma particles must be heated to temperatures that reach as high as 150 million °C and to achieve these extreme temperatures multiple heating methods must be used. Within the tokamak itself, changing magnetic fields produce a heating effect but external heating is also required. There will be three types of external heating in ITER:

 Two one-million volt heating neutral beam injectors (HNB) that will each provide about 16.5MW to the burning plasma, with the possibility to add a third injector. The beams generate electrically charged deuterium ions that are accelerated through five grids to reach the required energy of 1MV and the beams can operate for the entire plasma pulse duration, a total of up to 3600 seconds. The prototype is being built at the Neutral Beam Test Facility (NBTF), which was constructed in Padua, Italy. There is also a smaller neutral beam that will be used for diagnostics to help detect the amount of helium ash inside the tokamak.
 An ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) system that will inject 20 MW of electromagnetic power into the plasma by using antennas to generate radio waves that have the same rate of oscillation as the ions in the plasma.
 An electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) system that will heat electrons in the plasma using a high-intensity beam of electromagnetic radiation.

Cryostat
The ITER cryostat is a large 3,850-tonne stainless steel structure surrounding the vacuum vessel and the superconducting magnets, with the purpose of providing a super-cool vacuum environment. Its thickness (ranging from ) will allow it to withstand the stresses induced by atmospheric pressure acting on the enclosed volume of 8,500 cubic meters. On 9 June 2020, Larsen & Toubro completed the delivery and installation of the cryostat module. The cryostat is the major component of the tokamak complex, which sits on a seismically isolated base.

Divertor

The divertor is a device within the tokamak that allows for removal of waste and impurities from the plasma while the reactor is operating. At ITER, the divertor will extract heat and ash that are created by the fusion process, while also protecting the surrounding walls and reducing plasma contamination.

The ITER divertor, which has been compared to a massive ashtray, is made of 54 pieces of stainless-steel parts that are known as cassettes. Each cassette weighs roughly eight tonnes and measures 0.8 meters x 2.3 meters by 3.5 meters. The divertor design and construction is being overseen by the Fusion For Energy agency.

When the ITER tokamak is in operation, the plasma-facing units endure heat spikes as high as 20 megawatts per square metre, which is more than four times higher than what is experienced by a spacecraft entering Earth's atmosphere.

The testing of the divertor is being done at the ITER Divertor Test Facility (IDTF) in Russia. This facility was created at the Efremov Institute in Saint Petersburg as part of the ITER Procurement Arrangement that spreads design and manufacturing across the project's member countries.

Cooling systems
The ITER tokamak will use interconnected cooling systems to manage the heat generated during operation. Most of the heat will be removed by a primary water cooling loop, itself cooled by water from a secondary loop through a heat exchanger within the tokamak building's secondary confinement. The secondary cooling loop will be cooled by a larger complex, comprising a cooling tower, a  pipeline supplying water from the Canal de Provence, and basins that allow cooling water to be cooled and tested for chemical contamination and tritium before being released into the river Durance. This system will need to dissipate an average power of  during the tokamak's operation. A liquid nitrogen system will provide a further  of cooling to , and a liquid helium system will provide  of cooling to . The liquid helium system will be designed, manufactured, installed and commissioned by Air Liquide in France.

Location

The process of selecting a location for ITER was long and drawn out. Japan proposed a site in Rokkasho. Two European sites were considered, the Cadarache site in France and the Vandellòs site in Spain, but the European Competitiveness Council named Cadarache as its official candidate in November 2003. Additionally, Canada announced a bid for the site in Clarington in May 2001, but withdrew from the race in 2003.

From this point on, the choice was between France and Japan. On 3 May 2005, the EU and Japan agreed to a process which would settle their dispute by July. At the final meeting in Moscow on 28 June 2005, the participating parties agreed to construct ITER at Cadarache with Japan receiving a privileged partnership that included a Japanese director-general for the project and a financial package to construct facilities in Japan.
Fusion for Energy, the EU agency in charge of the European contribution to the project, is located in Barcelona, Spain. Fusion for Energy (F4E) is the European Union's Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy. According to the agency's website: F4E is responsible for providing Europe's contribution to ITER, the world's largest scientific partnership that aims to demonstrate fusion as a viable and sustainable source of energy. [...] F4E also supports fusion research and development initiatives [...]
The ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility aimed at developing and optimizing the neutral beam injector prototype, is being constructed in Padova, Italy. It will be the only ITER facility out of the site in Cadarache.

Most of the buildings at ITER will or have been clad in an alternating pattern of reflective stainless steel and grey lacquered metal. This was done for aesthetic reasons to blend the buildings with their surrounding environment and to aid with thermal insulation.

Participants

Currently there are seven signatories to the ITER Agreement: China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.

As a consequence of Brexit, the United Kingdom formally withdrew from Euratom on 31 January 2020. However, under the terms of the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the United Kingdom remains a member of ITER as a part of Fusion for Energy following the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020.

In March 2009, Switzerland, an associate member of Euratom since 1979, also ratified the country's accession to the Fusion for Energy as a third country member.

In 2016, ITER announced a partnership with Australia for "technical cooperation in areas of mutual benefit and interest", but without Australia becoming a full member.

In 2017, ITER signed a Cooperation Agreement with Kazakhstan.

Thailand also has an official role in the project after a cooperation agreement was signed between the ITER Organization and the Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology in 2018. The agreement provides courses and lectures to students and scientists in Thailand and facilitates relationships between Thailand and the ITER project.

Canada was previously a full member but pulled out due to a lack of funding from the federal government. The lack of funding also resulted in Canada's withdrawing from its bid for the ITER site in 2003. Canada rejoined the project in 2020 via a cooperation agreement that focused on tritium and tritium-related equipment.

ITER's work is supervised by the ITER Council, which has the authority to appoint senior staff, amend regulations, decide on budgeting issues, and allow additional states or organizations to participate in ITER. The current Chairman of the ITER Council is Won Namkung, and the acting ITER Director-General is Eisuke Tada.

Members

 (as a member of Euratom and Fusion for Energy)
 (as a part of Fusion for Energy)

Non-members
 (through the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) in 2016)
 (through the Government of Canada in 2020, mostly on the grounds of tritium)
 (through the National Nuclear Center of the Republic of Kazakhstan (NNC-RK)  in 2017)
 (through the Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (TINT) in 2018)

Domestic agencies

Each member of the ITER project –  The European Union, China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, and the United States – has created a domestic agency to meet its contributions and procurement responsibilities. These agencies employ their own staff, have their own budget, and directly oversee all industrial contracts and subcontracting.

ITER EU

The ITER Agreement was signed by Euratom representing the EU. Fusion for Energy, often referred to as F4E, was created in 2007 as the EU's domestic agency, with headquarters in Barcelona, Spain, and further offices in Cadarache, France, Garching, Germany, and Rokkasho, Japan. F4E is responsible for contributing to the design and manufacture of components such as the vacuum vessel, the divertor, and the magnets.

ITER China

China's contribution to ITER is managed through the China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program or the CNDA. The Chinese agency is working on components such as the correction coil, magnet supports, the first wall, and shield blanket. China is also running experiments on their HL-2M tokamak in Chengdu and HT-7U (EAST) in Hefei to help support ITER research.

ITER India

ITER-India is a special project run by India's Institute for Plasma Research. ITER-India's research facility is based in Ahmedabad in the Gujarat state. India's deliverables to the ITER project include the cryostat, in-vessel shielding, cooling and cooling water systems.

ITER Japan

Japan's National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Sciences and Technology, or QST, is now the designated Japanese domestic agency for the ITER project. The organization is based in Chiba, Japan. Japan collaborates with the ITER Organization and ITER members to help design and produce components for the tokamak, including the blanket remote handling system, the central solenoid coils, the plasma diagnostics systems, and the neutral beam injection heating systems.

ITER Korea

ITER Korea was established in 2007 under Korea's National Fusion Research Institute and the organization is based in Daejeon, South Korea. Among the procurement items that ITER Korea is responsible for four sectors of the vacuum vessel, the blanket shield block, thermal shields, and the tritium storage and delivery system.

ITER Russia

Russia occupies one of the key positions in the implementation of the international ITER Project. The Russian Federation's contribution to the ITER project lies in the manufacture and supply of high-tech equipment and basic reactor systems. The Russian Federation's contribution is being made under the aegis of Rosatom or the State Atomic Energy Corporation. The Russian Federation has multiple obligations to the ITER project, including the supply of 22 kilometers of conductors based on 90 tonnes of superconducting Nb3Sn strands for winding coils of a toroidal field and 11 km of conductors based on 40 tonnes of superconducting NbTi strands for windings of coils of a poloidal field of the ITER magnetic system, sent in late 2022. Russia is responsible for the manufacture of 179 of the most energy-intensive (up to 5 MW/sq.m) panels of the First Wall. The panels are covered with beryllium plates soldered to CuCrZr bronze, which is connected to a steel base. Panel size up to 2 m wide, 1.4 m high; its mass is about 1000 kg. The obligation of the Russian Federation also includes conducting thermal tests of ITER components that are facing the plasma. Today, Russia, thanks to its participation in the project, has the full design documentation for the ITER reactor.

ITER US

US ITER is part of the US Department of Energy and is managed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. US ITER is responsible for both the design and manufacturing of components for the ITER project, and American involvement includes contributions to the tokamak cooling system, the diagnostics systems, the electron and ion cyclotron heating transmission lines, the toroidal and central solenoid magnet systems, and the pellet injection systems.
In 2022, the US fusion research community released its plan for a US ITER Research Program covering key research areas such as plasma-material interactions, plasma diagnostics, and fusion nuclear science and technology. The plan envisions close collaboration between the US and other ITER partners to ensure the successful operation of ITER.

Funding

In 2006, the ITER Agreement was signed on the basis of an estimated cost of €5.9 billion over a ten-year period. In 2008, as a result of a design review, the estimate was revised upwards to approximately €19 billion. As of 2016, the total price of constructing and operating the experiment is expected to be in excess of €22 billion, an increase of €4.6 billion of its 2010 estimate, and of €9.6 billion from the 2009 estimate.

At the June 2005 conference in Moscow the participating members of the ITER cooperation agreed on the following division of funding contributions for the construction phase: 45.4% by the hosting member, the European Union, and the rest split between the non-hosting members at a rate of 9.1% each for China, India, Japan, South Korea, the Russian Federation and the US. During the operation and deactivation phases, Euratom will contribute to 34% of the total costs, Japan and the United States 13 percent, and China, India, Korea, and Russia 10 percent.

Ninety percent of contributions will be delivered 'in-kind' using ITER's own currency, the ITER Units of Account (IUAs). Although Japan's financial contribution as a non-hosting member is one-eleventh of the total, the EU agreed to grant it a special status so that Japan will provide for two-elevenths of the research staff at Cadarache and be awarded two-elevenths of the construction contracts, while the European Union's staff and construction components contributions will be cut from five-elevenths to four-elevenths.

The American contribution to ITER has been the subject to debate. The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated the total construction costs to 2025, including in-kind contributions, to be $65 billion, although ITER disputes this calculation. After having reduced funding to ITER in 2017, the United States ended up doubling its initial budget to $122 million in-kind contribution in 2018. It is estimated the total contribution to ITER for the year 2020 was $247 million, an amount that is part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Fusion Energy Sciences program. Under a strategic plan to guide American fusion energy efforts that was approved in January 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy directed the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee to assume that the U.S. will continue to fund ITER for a ten-year period.

Support for the European budget for ITER has also varied over the course of the project. It was reported in December 2010 that the European Parliament had refused to approve a plan by member states to reallocate €1.4 billion from the budget to cover a shortfall in ITER building costs in 2012–13. The closure of the 2010 budget required this financing plan to be revised, and the European Commission (EC) was forced to put forward an ITER budgetary resolution proposal in 2011. In the end, the European contribution to ITER for the 2014 to 2020 period was set at €2.9 billion. Most recently, in February 2021, the European Council approved ITER financing of €5.61 billion for the period of 2021 to 2027.

Manufacturing

The construction of the ITER tokamak has been compared to the assembly of "a giant three-dimensional puzzle" because the parts are manufactured around the world and then shipped to France for assembly. This assembly system is the result of the ITER Agreement that stipulates that member contributions were to be mostly "in-kind" with countries manufacturing components instead of providing money. This system was devised to provide economic stimulus and fusion expertise in the countries funding the project and the general framework called for 90% of member contributions to be in material or components and 10% to be in money.

As a result, more than 2800 design or manufacturing contracts have been signed since the launch of the project. According to a 2017 estimate from French Minister for Research, Education and Innovation, Frédérique Vidal, there were 500 companies involved in the construction of ITER and Bernard Bigot stated that €7 billion in contracts had been awarded to prime contractors in Europe alone since 2007.

The overall assembly of the tokamak facility is being overseen through a €174-million contract awarded to Momentum, a joint venture between Amec Foster Wheeler (Britain), Assystem (France), and Kepco (South Korea). One of the largest tenders was a €530-million contract for HVAC systems and mechanical and electrical equipment that was awarded to a European consortium involving ENGIE (France) and Exyte (Germany). A tokamak assembly contract worth €200 million also went to a European consortium, Dynamic, that includes the companies Ansaldo Energia (Italy), ENGIE (France), and SIMIC (Italy). The French industrial conglomerate Daher was awarded more than €100 million in  logistics contracts for ITER, which includes the shipment of the heavy components from the different manufacturers around the world.

In America, US ITER has awarded $1.3 billion in contracts to American companies since the beginning of the project and there is an estimated $800 million in future contracts still to come. The major US contracts include General Atomics being selected to design and manufacture the crucial central solenoid magnet.

In 2019, the Chinese consortium led by China Nuclear Power Engineering Corporation signed a contract for machine assembly at ITER that was the biggest nuclear energy contract ever signed by a Chinese company in Europe.

Russia is supplying magnet and vacuum-injection systems for ITER with construction being done at the Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard in Saint Petersburg.

In India, the contract for construction of the cryostat, one of the fundamental pieces of the tokamak, was awarded to Larsen & Toubro, who also have ITER contracts for water cooling systems.

Two of Japan's industrial leaders, Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, have contracts to manufacture the toroidal field coils for ITER. Construction of another key part of the tokamak, the vacuum vessel, was awarded to Hyundai Heavy Industries and is being built in Korea.

Delays were acknowledged in 2023, which would impact the target to create plasma by 2025, however it was hoped the 2035 full-fusion target could be maintained. A new schedule will be issued by the end of 2023.

Criticism

The ITER project has been criticized for issues such as its possible environmental impacts, its usefulness as a response to climate change, the design of its tokamak, and how the experiment's objectives have been expressed.

When France was announced as the site of the ITER project in 2005, several European environmentalists stated their opposition to the project. For example, the French politician Noël Mamère argued that the fight against global warming would be neglected as a result of ITER: "This is not good news for the fight against the greenhouse effect because we're going to put ten billion euros towards a project that has a term of 30–50 years when we're not even sure it will be effective." However, another French environmental association, Association des Ecologistes Pour le Nucléaire (AEPN), welcomed the ITER project as an important part of the response to climate change.

Within the broader fusion sector, a number of researchers working on non-tokamak systems, such as the independent fusion scientist Eric Lerner, have argued that other fusion projects would be a fraction of ITER's cost and could be a potentially more viable and/or more cost-effective path to fusion power. Other critics, such as Daniel Jassby, accuse ITER researchers of being unwilling to face up to the technical and economic potential problems posed by tokamak fusion schemes.

In terms of the design of the tokamak, one concern arose from the 2013 tokamak parameters database interpolation that revealed the power load on a tokamak divertor would be five times the previously expected value. Given that the projected power load on the ITER divertor will already be very high, these new findings led to new design testing initiatives.

Another issue that critics raised regarding ITER and future deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion projects is the available supply of tritium. As it stands, ITER will use all existing supplies of tritium for its experiment and the current state-of-the-art technology isn't sufficient to generate enough tritium to fulfill the needs of future DT fuel cycle experiments for fusion energy. According to the conclusion of a 2020 study that analyzed the tritium issue, "successful development of the DT fuel cycle for DEMO and future fusion reactors requires an intensive R&D program in key areas of plasma physics and fusion technologies."

Responses to criticism
Proponents believe that much of the ITER criticism is misleading and inaccurate, in particular the allegations of the experiment's "inherent danger". The stated goals for a commercial fusion power station design are that the amount of radioactive waste produced should be hundreds of times less than that of a fission reactor, and that it should produce no long-lived radioactive waste, and that it is impossible for any such reactor to undergo a large-scale runaway chain reaction. A direct contact of the plasma with ITER inner walls would contaminate it, causing it to cool immediately and stop the fusion process. In addition, the amount of fuel contained in a fusion reactor chamber (one half gram of deuterium/tritium fuel) is only sufficient to sustain the fusion burn pulse from minutes up to an hour at most, whereas a fission reactor usually contains several years' worth of fuel.
Moreover, some detritiation systems will be implemented, so that, at a fuel cycle inventory level of about , ITER will eventually need to recycle large amounts of tritium and at turnovers orders of magnitude higher than any preceding tritium facility worldwide.

In the case of an accident (or sabotage), it is expected that a fusion reactor would release far less radioactive pollution than would an ordinary fission nuclear station. Furthermore, ITER's type of fusion power has little in common with nuclear weapons technology, and does not produce the fissile materials necessary for the construction of a weapon. Proponents note that large-scale fusion power would be able to produce reliable electricity on demand, and with virtually zero pollution (no gaseous CO2, SO2, or NOx by-products are produced).

According to researchers at a demonstration reactor in Japan, a fusion generator should be feasible in the 2030s and no later than the 2050s. Japan is pursuing its own research program with several operational facilities that are exploring several fusion paths.

In the United States alone, electricity accounts for US$210 billion in annual sales. Asia's electricity sector attracted US$93 billion in private investment between 1990 and 1999. These figures take into account only current prices. Proponents of ITER contend that an investment in research now should be viewed as an attempt to earn a far greater future return and a 2017–18 study of the impact of ITER investments on the EU economy have concluded that 'in the medium and long-term, there is likely to be a positive return on investment from the EU commitment to ITER.'
Also, worldwide investment of less than US$1 billion per year into ITER is not incompatible with concurrent research into other methods of power generation, which in 2007 totaled US$16.9 billion.

Supporters of ITER emphasize that the only way to test ideas for withstanding the intense neutron flux is to subject materials experimentally to that flux, which is one of the primary missions of ITER and the IFMIF, and both facilities will be vitally important to that effort. The purpose of ITER is to explore the scientific and engineering questions that surround potential fusion power stations. It is nearly impossible to acquire satisfactory data for the properties of materials expected to be subject to an intense neutron flux, and burning plasmas are expected to have quite different properties from externally heated plasmas. Supporters contend that the answer to these questions requires the ITER experiment, especially in the light of the monumental potential benefits.

Furthermore, the main line of research via tokamaks has been developed to the point that it is now possible to undertake the penultimate step in magnetic confinement plasma physics research with a self-sustained reaction. In the tokamak research program, recent advances devoted to controlling the configuration of the plasma have led to the achievement of substantially improved energy and pressure confinement, which reduces the projected cost of electricity from such reactors by a factor of two to a value only about 50% more than the projected cost of electricity from advanced light-water reactors. In addition, progress in the development of advanced, low activation structural materials supports the promise of environmentally benign fusion reactors and research into alternate confinement concepts is yielding the promise of future improvements in confinement. Finally, supporters contend that other potential replacements to the fossil fuels have environmental issues of their own. Solar, wind, and hydroelectric power all have very low surface power density compared to ITER's successor DEMO which, at 2,000 MW, would have an energy density that exceeds even large fission power stations.

Safety of the project is regulated according to French and EU nuclear power regulations. In 2011, the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) delivered a favorable opinion, and then, based on the French Act on Nuclear Transparency and Safety, the licensing application was subject to public enquiry that allowed the general public to submit requests for information regarding safety of the project. According to published safety assessments (approved by the ASN), in the worst case of reactor leak, released radioactivity will not exceed 1/1000 of natural background radiation and no evacuation of local residents will be required. The whole installation includes a number of stress tests to confirm efficiency of all barriers. The whole reactor building is built on top of almost 500 seismic suspension columns and the whole complex is located almost 300 m above sea level. Overall, extremely rare events such as 100-year flood of the nearby Durance river and 10,000-year earthquakes were assumed in the safety design of the complex and respective safeguards are part of the design.

Between 2008 and 2017, the project has generated 34,000 job-years in the EU economy alone. It is estimated that in the 2018–2030 period, it will generate a further 74,000 job-years and €15.9 billion in gross value.

Similar projects
Precursors to ITER were JET, Tore Supra, MAST, SST-1, EAST, and KSTAR.
Other planned and proposed fusion reactors include NIF, W7X, T-15MD, STEP, SPARC, SST-2, CFETR, DEMO, K-DEMO and other 'DEMO-phase' national or private-sector fusion power plants.

See also

 DEMOnstration Power Plant, generic term for a future class of fusion reactors that produce useful power
 Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), China's ongoing effort at Hefei Institutes
 Wendelstein 7-X, an advanced stellarator of Max Planck IPP in Germany for evaluating components of future fusion power plants

Notes

References

Further reading
Claessens, Michel. (2020). ITER: The giant fusion reactor: Bringing a Sun to Earth. Springer.

Clery, Daniel. (2013). A Piece of the Sun. Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.

ITER. (2018). ITER Research Plan within the Staged Approach (Level III – Provisional Version). ITER.

Wendell Horton, Jr, C., and Sadruddin Benkadda. (2015). ITER physics. World Scientific.

External links

 ITER China website
 ITER EU (Fusion for Energy) website
 ITER India website
 ITER Japan website
 ITER Korea website
 ITER Russia website
 ITER US website
 The New Yorker, 3 March 2014, Star in a Bottle, by Raffi Khatchadourian
 Archival material collected by Prof. McCray relating to ITER's early phase (1979–1989) can be consulted at the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence
  "ITER Talks (1): Introduction to ITER" video (53:00) at YouTube, by ITER Organization, July 23, 2021.
 The roles of the Host and the non-Host for the ITER Project. June 2005 The broader approach agreement with Japan.
 Fusion Electricity – A roadmap to the realisation of fusion energy EFDA 2012 – 8 missions, ITER, project plan with dependencies, ...

Buildings and structures in Bouches-du-Rhône
International science experiments
Science diplomacy

ITER


Wendell Mitchell (September 4, 1940 – February 4, 2012) was a Democratic member of the Alabama Senate, representing the 30th District from 1974 to 2010. District 30 includes parts or all of Autauga, Butler, Crenshaw, Elmore, Lowndes, and Pike Counties.

2010 Campaign Endorsements
Wendell Mitchell was endorsed by the following organizations:
 National Rifle Association of America (NRA)
 Alabama Retail Association
 ALFA Farmers Federation

Mitchell's 2010 campaign information is on his official website.

Professional Biography
Mitchell was a conservative Democratic senator who was known for working across party lines to build better schools, recruit industry, and fund important projects in his district. In 2007, Mitchell's colleagues in the Senate voted him to the position of Deputy President Pro Tempore, an important role in guiding the future of our state. His seniority in the Alabama Senate made him one of the state's most effective lawmakers.

Mitchell was chairman of the standing committee on Governmental Affairs in the Senate and chairman of the Joint House–Senate Committee on Energy. He also served as a voting member of every Senate committee by virtue of his position as Deputy President Pro Tempore.

Mitchell earned a bachelor's degree from Auburn University and a law degree from the University of Alabama. He was a past Dean of Jones Law School at Faulkner University and was still active as a Professor of Law at the institution until his death.

He died of congestive heart failure in February 2012.

Accomplishments
A champion for economic development, Mitchell used his experience to create new job opportunities in our area. His efforts included helping land new industries including Hyundai and SMART, as well as providing assistance to keep existing businesses growing.

As Senator for District 30, Mitchell fought for and won more than $36 million in funding for local projects that improved our community. These included the new vocational wing at Greenville High School, the new Health and Fitness Center in Prattville, the Agricultural Pavilion in Autauga County, the Miracle Field for handicapped individuals in Troy, a new baseball complex in Brantley, and equipment for various local fire departments.

Mitchell was a strong supporter of Troy University and Lurleen B. Wallace Community College, which are in his district, as well as being a champion for all educational programs throughout the six counties he represents.

He led the fight to bring prescription drug relief to seniors and to make sure that dollars for education aren't spent on non-education items.  Mitchell also authored the Alabama Religious Freedom Act to protect the free exercise of religion and sponsored a bill to protect teachers who present alternate points of view concerning human origins in the classroom.

References

External links
 Walking Wendell Mitchell's Website
 Alabama State Legislature – Senator "Walking" Wendell Mitchell
 Project Vote Smart – Senator 'Walking' Wendell Mitchell (AL)

1940 births
2012 deaths
Democratic Party Alabama state senators
Auburn University alumni
Politicians from Montgomery, Alabama
University of Alabama School of Law alumni
Lawyers from Montgomery, Alabama
20th-century American lawyers

Wendell Mitchell


Barnard Foord Bowes or Barnard Bowes Foord (7 July 1769 – 23 June 1812) commanded a British brigade in several battles during the Peninsular War. He joined the 26th Foot Regiment as a junior officer in 1781 and rose in rank by purchase to become lieutenant colonel of the 6th Foot Regiment in 1796. He led troops during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. From 1799 to 1806 he served in Canada and married his wife there. He led a brigade at Roliça and Vimeiro in 1808. He was promoted major general in 1810. He was severely wounded while leading his brigade in an assault during the 1812 Siege of Badajoz. He was killed in action leading a storming column at the Siege of the Salamanca Forts.

Early career
Bowes Foord's precise date of birth is unknown. However, records show that he was baptized on 7 July 1769 at St Saviour's Church in York, Yorkshire, England. He was the oldest son of parents Doctor Barnard Foord and Ann Bowes. His family bought him an officer's commission and he joined the 26th Foot Regiment as an ensign on 25 October 1781 at the age of 12. He was promoted lieutenant in the same regiment on 8 August 1783. He became a captain in an independent company on 24 January 1791 and a captain in the 26th Foot on 2 February 1791 by exchange. On 17 May that year he changed his name to Barnard Foord Bowes so that he could inherit from his mother's family.

Except for a brief time with the independent company, Bowes served with the 26th Foot for 15 years. On 15 June 1796 he purchased the rank of major in the 85th Foot. Not quite six months later on 1 December 1796 he purchased the rank of lieutenant colonel in the 6th Foot and went to join the unit in Ireland. He assumed command of the 1st Battalion of the 6th Foot during the 1798 Irish Rebellion. One company of the regiment fought at Castlebar on 27 August and Ballinamuck on 8 September. Bowes and the regiment were shipped to Canada in 1799. He received the brevet rank of colonel on 1 January 1805.

While in Canada, Bowes married Maria Johnson on 15 April 1805. She was the daughter of Sir John Johnson, 2nd Baronet, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs. When Lieutenant General Peter Hunter died that August, Bowes became the commanding officer of all British troops in Canada by seniority. On 27 September 1806, Bowes resigned his command in Canada and rejoined his unit in England. Bowes and his wife Maria settled in Beverley in Yorkshire and the couple had no children.

Peninsular War

Portugal

In 1807 Bowes and the 6th Foot were assigned to the garrison of Gibraltar. In the Dos de Mayo Uprising of May 1808, the Spanish people rose in revolt against the French troops occupying their country. Both the ruling Tories and the opposition Whigs saw the Spanish revolt as an opportunity for the United Kingdom to effectively intervene against Emperor Napoleon on the European continent. When the Spanish authorities declined the offer of soldiers, the British government determined to send an expedition to the Kingdom of Portugal which was occupied by French troops. Britain would send 9,000 men under Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley from Ireland, a force under Major General Brent Spencer from Gibraltar, and two brigades from Harwich and Ramsgate, altogether 18,000 infantry and 390 cavalry.

On 1 August 1808, Wellesley's force landed at the mouth of the Mondego River near Figueira da Foz. On his own initiative, Spencer sailed from Gibraltar and landed his troops on 5 August. Wellesley spent until 9 August organizing his small army into six brigades before marching toward Lisbon. Lieutenant General Hew Whitefoord Dalrymple, who was Governor of Gibraltar, wrote to Spencer on 17 July that the British Army administration had not appointed Bowes a brigadier general on the staff. He therefore refused to appoint Bowes a brigadier. Dalrymple also noted that Bowes ought to return to Gibraltar, saying he was not properly attached to the command. Nevertheless, he gave Bowes permission to serve with Wellesley's expedition. Since Bowes was senior to several officers commanding brigades, Wellesley assumed that he was a brigadier general on the staff and assigned him to command the 4th Brigade with the rank of brigadier general.

The 4th Brigade consisted of the 1st Battalions of the 6th Foot (946 men) and the 32nd Foot (874 men). On 17 August, Wellesley's 13,000 British and 2,000 Portuguese fought 4,350 Frenchmen under General of Division Henri François Delaborde in the Battle of Roliça. Wellesley tried to envelop Delaborde's division. To this end, he sent the Portuguese to the right and Major General Ronald Craufurd Ferguson to the left with his own and Bowes' brigades plus six guns. When Delaborde evaded the trap and withdrew to a ridge, Ferguson's two brigades again tried to loop around the French flank. Meanwhile, the other brigades mounted a frontal attack on the French. Ferguson's two brigades got lost and when they finally appeared, Delaborde was in retreat. The following day, ships with 4,000 more British soldiers in two brigades appeared offshore near Vimeiro and Wellesley marched to meet them.

The Battle of Vimeiro was fought on 21 August 1808. Wellesley posted the brigades of Major General Rowland Hill, and Brigadier Generals Bowes, Miles Nightingall, Catlin Craufurd, and Wroth Palmer Acland on a prominent ridge on the right flank. On the left flank near Vimeiro were the brigades of Major General Ferguson, and Brigadier Generals Robert Anstruther and Henry Fane. When French General of Division Jean-Andoche Junot sent a force to the north, Wellesley quickly formed a new left flank by sending the brigades of Bowes, Nightingall, Ferguson, and Craufurd north. When they reached the northern ridge, Ferguson and half of Nightingall's brigades formed the first line while Bowes and half of Nightingall's brigades comprised the second line. The French attacked and all of Ferguson's and Nightingall's troops were engaged, but Bowes' brigade did not fire a shot or suffer any casualties. On 5 September, the new commander Dalrymple reorganized the army and sent Bowes back to Gibraltar.

Spain

Bowes was a brigadier general on the staff from 1808 to 1810. On 7 February 1810, Bowes was sent to Cádiz with reinforcements and kept there by Lieutenant General William Stewart. Three weeks later, Wellesley (now called Wellington) wrote to Stewart, "I approve of your detaining Brig. Gen. Bowes, he is an officer of whom I am well acquainted, and is highly deserving of the confidence which you are disposed to place in him". However, Bowes returned to Gibraltar by 23 March. He took command of an expedition to Málaga to support Spanish General Luis de Lacy, but the force returned to Gibraltar without landing. He was promoted major general on 25 July 1810. In late 1811 Bowes was assigned to the staff of Wellington's army.

Bowes assumed command of the Fusilier Brigade in the 4th Division in February 1812. The Siege of Badajoz concluded with a successful assault on 6 April 1812. The three breaches blasted in the walls were the focus of the main attack. The 4th Division was ordered to storm the right and center breaches with 3,500 soldiers while the Light Division assaulted the left breach with 3,000 men. The main attack which began at 10 pm was a disaster. The advance party of the 4th Division, coming upon the ditch and thinking that the water in it was only ankle deep, jumped in. In fact the French had dug it out to a depth of 6 feet; twenty British and thirty Portuguese soldiers drowned. The survivors swerved to the left to avoid the inundation. When the advance parties of the 4th and Light Divisions entered the ditch, the French sappers ignited the incendiary devices and mines they had thickly sown. Scores of attackers were killed, burnt, or maimed in the blasts that followed. Every British engineer officer guiding the columns was killed or wounded almost at once, so the subsequent waves had little direction. The soldiers bravely charged up the breaches again and again, only to be massacred by point blank musketry and cannon fire. After midnight, Wellington ordered the two divisions to retreat. Their losses were horrific. Not counting Portuguese losses, the 4th Division suffered casualties of 84 officers and 841 men, while Light Division losses were 68 officers and 861 men.

The battle was won because the secondary attacks by the 3rd Division and 5th Division were both successful. When the 5th Division broke into the fortress and fired into the backs of the troops defending the breaches, the French surrendered in a body. The surviving British and Portuguese soldiers then went berserk as they sacked the hapless city. Bowes' brigade included the 1/7th Foot, 1/23rd Foot, and 1/48th Foot. The 7th lost 49 killed and 131 wounded, the 23rd lost 25 killed, 106 wounded, and 20 drowned, and the 48th lost 35 killed and 138 wounded. While leading the assault on the right breach, Bowes was badly wounded; he was shot in the thigh and stabbed by a bayonet. His brother-in-law and aide-de-camp Captain James Johnson was killed in the battle. It took Bowes six weeks to recover from his injuries.

On 2 May 1812 while still recuperating, Bowes was assigned to command a brigade in the 6th Division. The brigade included the 2nd Foot, 1/32nd Foot. and the 1/36th Foot. On 13 June, Wellington's army mounted an offensive toward Salamanca. By 17 June the Allied army began the Siege of the Salamanca Forts, a trio of heavily fortified convents manned by 800 French soldiers and 36 cannons. Someone blundered and there was insufficient ammunition for the Allied army's four 18-pound siege cannons. By 23 June, the siege guns had run out of ammunition and the walls of the forts were still intact. Nevertheless, Wellington ordered the San Cayetano fort to be stormed at 10 pm that night. The six British light companies of the 6th Division were selected to make the assault, roughly 300–400 soldiers. Bowes determined to lead the attack though this was normally the responsibility of lower-ranking officers. An engineer suggested an alternate route of attack that had more cover, but Bowes decided to charge straight up the glacis.

The moment the assault column emerged from cover it was taken under heavy fire, not only from San Cayetano, but also from the San Vincente fort. Many soldiers were hit before they got close to the fort. Of 20 ladders provided, only two were set against the objective. By the time the ladders were raised, the attack was plainly hopeless and no soldiers set foot on them. Bowes was slightly wounded in the initial rush. After having his injury dressed, he heard that the attack was stalled. He rushed back into the battle only to be shot down and killed at the foot of the ladders. With his death, the attackers lost heart and ran for cover. British casualties numbered six officers and 120 rank and file. Afterward, the British requested a truce to retrieve the dead and wounded but the French refused and Bowes' body had to be recovered later. Wellington wrote, that Bowes "was so eager for the success of the enterprise, that he had gone forward with the storming party". There is a monument to Bowes in the Beverley Minster.

Notes

References

British Army major generals
British Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars
British Army personnel of the Peninsular War
British military personnel killed in action in the Napoleonic Wars
1769 births
1812 deaths

Barnard Foord Bowes


The FED is a Soviet rangefinder camera, mass-produced from 1934 until around 1996, and also the name of the factory that made it.

The factory emerged from the small workshops of the Children's labour commune named after Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (the acronym of which gave name to the factory and its products) in December 1927 in Kharkiv (Soviet Ukraine, now Ukraine). Initially the factory was managed by the head of the commune Anton Makarenko and produced simple electrical machinery (drills). In 1932, the new managing director of the factory, A.S. Bronevoy (Russian: А.С. Броневой), came up with the idea of producing a copy of the German Leica camera.

From 1955 FED began to innovate, combining the rangefinder with the viewfinder in the FED 2 and all its successors. The FED-3 added slow shutter speeds and on the later version FED-3 (b) the film advance was changed from a thumbwheel to a lever. The FED 4 (1964–77) added a non-coupled selenium exposure meter. The FED 5 marked the end of the FED rangefinder family and was meant as a replacement for both the FED-3 and FED-4, which were in production at the time of its introduction. There were versions of the FED-5: the original FED-5 had an exposure meter, the FED-5B was a cheaper version without meter and the later FED-5C had reflected framelines showing field of view of 50mm lens and an exposure meter. All FED-5 cameras were delivered with an Industar I-61L/D lens. Production of FED rangefinder cameras ended in the mid 1990s. Fed-5 Serial Number 545446 was made on 28 February 1994; Fed's site claims that it was in fact 1997:
"Start of serial production of vertical drive for control system of tanks. Production of all types of camera has stopped. 8,647,000 cameras were manufactured since the beginning." This may be accurate as there are FED-5 cameras in existence with serial numbers up to at least 596692.

FED 1 collector information
The following types are nomenclature used by collectors since no FED 1 or Fedka camera was actually marked in this way. Brief descriptions are included to help with identification.

1a 1934–1935 SN 31- 6000 (some sights have been done on early style, read 1a, cameras up to number 6500.

1b 1935–1937 SN 6000 – 55000 – Some with the NKVD engraving "Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs", which was the new name for Stalin's secret police.

1c 1937–1939 SN 55000 – 125000 – In 1937 a triangular cam-follower replaced the circular Leica-type cam follower and the speed dial was modified slightly to resemble the Leica II.

S 1938–1941 – Identical to 1c except that 2000 cameras were produced with a faster 1/1000" shutter speed.

V (B) 1938 – Identical to 1c except with a faster 1/1000" second shutter speed and a slow-speed dial.

1d 1939–1941 (August) SN 125000 – 180000 – Identifiable by the centre retaining screw being off-centre and not concealed by the lens-mount flange. In addition, in 1939 Ukraine lost its nominal independence from Russia and camera engraving changed to highlight this from UkSSR to USSR.

1d 1942–1945 SN 174000 – 178000 – Around 4000 cameras manufactured in Berdsk from parts evacuated from the FED Ukraine factory before it was overrun by the Nazis.

1e SN 174000 – 180000 – Manufactured in Berdsk in Siberia in the first few months of 1946 after hostilities ended, using parts made before the war.

T Engraved "Red Flag" in honour of new masters produced around SN 200000 and was fitted with a coated 50 mm  Industar 10 lens

1f 1949–1953 SN 201800 – 400000 – New cursive-script Fed logo, flatter shutter button, coated lens engraved with what were then called the international f stops, ,  and so on rather than the earlier , .

1949–1950 TSVVS – Two major circulating theories is that the cameras has either been manufactured at Moscow's Almaz factory or it had been ordered for manufacture by the Soviets from East Germany (possibly Zeiss, but it is also not confirmed). This camera is probably the most mysterious in nature out of all Soviet cameras. An old belief that this camera was made by FED factory is disputed by the fact that the body is wholly made out of brass and it is different dimensions physically than the FED-1 cameras. (see forum discussions at USSRPhoto.com for more detailed arguments about it between various Soviet camera experts).

1g 1953–1955 SN 400000 – 800000 – Shutter speeds changed to 25th, 50th,100th instead of old Leica 20th, 30th, 40th, 60th.

FED 1 serial numbers and production numbers
1934 SN 000031 - 004000  -  4k
1935 SN 004001 - 016000  - 12k
1936 SN 016001 - 031000  - 15k
1937 SN 031001 - 053000  - 22k
1938 SN 053001 - 082000  - 29k
1939 SN 082001 - 116000  - 34k
1940 SN 116001 - 148000  - 32k
1941 SN 148001 - 175000  - 25k
1942 - 45   (World War 2)     - see below
1946 SN 175001 - 176000  - 1k - see below
1947 SN 176001 - 186000  - 10k
1948 SN 186001 - 203000  - 13k
1949 SN 203001 - 221000  - 18k
1950 SN 221001 - 248000  - 27k
1951 SN 248001 - 289000  - 41k
1952 SN 289001 - 341000  - 53k
1953 SN 341001 - 424000  - 73k
1954 SN 424001 - 560000  - 136k
1955 SN 560001 - 700000  - 140k
V (B) 1938                              - 40
S 1938 - 41                           -  2k
1983 SN 104442 - 9377287 -150k
These serial numbers and production numbers are approximate. During World War II production was shifted to Siberia as the factory in Kharkiv was overrun by Nazi German forces. During this period and immediately after the war some serial numbers between 174000 - 180000 were used on cameras built in Berdsk in Siberia, even in the first few months of 1946.

FED 1 lens type information

All pre war FED lenses had non standardized flange to film distances. Most of them require a shorter flange distance than Leica (28.8mm) and hence they can't be used on Leica screwmount camera bodies. On Leica bodies they will not focus to infinity and the rangefinder will not be accurate, resulting in unsharp images. This may be the reason for the sometimes poor reputation of FED lenses. However, properly adapted to a modern digital mirrorless camera body, that allows for accurate focussing, these lenses show an amazing image quality (provided the lenses elements are still unscratched and clean).

100 mm  FED tele lens: Consists of 4 elements in two groups and was released in 1938 and produced until 1941. Official model dsignation: FED-36. A very sharp little lens that can be used wide open. Stopping down increases the tendency towards internal reflections, since the aperture blades are quite shiny.

100 mm  1937–1938 FED prototype lens, best used at  or smaller aperture.

50 mm  collapsible FED lens: Consists of 4 elements in three groups like the Zeiss Tessar 50 mm  (the Leitz Elmar has the aperture located behind the first element, the Zeiss Tessar has it behind the second element). The official model designation before the war was FED-10. There are actually no FED-10 lenses engraved with an "Industar-10" designation. The designation "Industar" was first used on the succeeding model, the Industar-22. The FED-10 was manufactured 1934–1946(?) and fitted to most FED 1a, 1b, 1c and 1d. Pre war lenses feature the old-style aperture scale  and a 50 M/M. Post war lenses feature the new-style aperture scale  and a 50 MM engraving. Most post war lenses were coated except for some very early ones.

50 mm  fast FED lens: Consists of 6 elements in 4 groups like the Leitz Summar, but the unlike the Summar it features five elements with flat surfaces, while the elements of the Summar have only curved surfaces. Official model designation: unknown. Production period 1938–1941. The optical performance is slightly weaker than that of the Leitz Summar, as it shows slight chromatic aberrations in the far corners of the image,

50 mm  macro lens. An number of variants with different engravings exist, but they were all not rangefinder coupled. The official model designation was FED-19. They are based on the FED-10 design and were intended for reproduction work. Correct focussing was achieved by measuring the distance from the subject to an engraved ring on the lens barrel. These lenses feature two scales: One with the magnification ratio (M) ranging from ∞ (= 1:∞) to 2 (= 1:2). Above each magnification value one finds the corresponding distance, measured from the engraved ring to the subject. Infinity has obviously no corresponding distance value and so the distance scale starts with 105(cm) for magnification 1:20 and ends with 15(cm) for magnification 1:2.

28 mm  FED wide angle lens: Released in 1938 and produced until 1941. The official model designation was FED-35. The optical design was rather complex, featuring 6 elements in 4 groups and it was faster than its contemporary competitors, the Leitz Hektor 28 mm  and the Zeiss Tessar 28 mm . The FED-35 shows severy vignetting wide open and a quite low contrast. Stopping down to  and below boosts the image quality to a very respectable quality.

FED 1 technical specifications, 1934 (or Fedka)
Copy of the Leica II.
Manufactured 1934–1955 (spec as 1934 Fedka).
Aperture settings: , , , , ,  Lens is screw mount 39mm Leica-type, but not standardized to the Leica 28.8mm flange distance!
Shutter is cloth focal-plane.
Shutter speeds: Z - 20th, 30th, 40th, 60th, 100th, 200th, 500th.
Focusing: 1.25 M to infinity.
Coupled range finder with a separate viewfinder.
Film is standard 35mm.
Loading via a removable bottom.
Weight is approximately 630 g.

Notes
1948 or 1949 onwards Industar-10 lens with "international" f stops, , , , , ,
1953 onwards Shutter speeds changed to 25th, 50th, 100th, 200th, 500th.

References

External links

 Film about FED company history "To be the first!" (Rus)
 The FED company site (Rus)
 FED General Information (Rus)
 FED company history (Rus)
 Rangefinder cameras of the Soviet era
 Faraway, yet so close "Are Leica LTM lenses really compatible with Soviet LTM bodies?"
 Industar 26 and 61 Relubing
 rus-camera
 Exact Soviet Leica II copy the FED 1 or Fedka camera c. 1934 by Stephen Rothery
 Soviet development of Leica II concept the FED 2 c. 1955 by Stephen Rothery
 FED cameras Price Guide completed auction prices
 Zorki Survival Site by Jay Javier
 USSRPhoto.com Wiki catalog entries for the FED-1 cameras. Use left navigation to see other FED models
 Oscar Fricke: The Dzerzhinsky Commune: Birth of the Soviet 35 mm Camera Industry

Soviet cameras
Defunct photography companies
Photography companies of Russia

FED (camera)


The Venturers is a British television series produced by the BBC in 1975.

The series, created by Donald Bull, had started out as an edition of Drama Playhouse in 1972 before being commissioned as an ongoing series. The Venturers took place in the high pressure world of Prince's merchant bank and dealt with the intricacies of high finance amongst its millionaire clients.

Geoffrey Keen starred as director Gerald Lang, in a virtual reprise of his role as oil executive Brian Stead in Mogul / The Troubleshooters. Other major cast members included James Kerry, David Buck, Cyril Luckham and William Squire.

The Venturers lasted for a single series of ten episodes.

Cast
 Geoffrey Keen as Gerald Lang
 David Buck as Tom Prince
 James Kerry as David Ayrton
 Karin MacCarthy as Dorothy Ayrton
 Hugh Manning as Freddie Pander
 Cyril Luckham as Lord Kilvern
 William Squire as Sir George Fielding

External links

BBC television dramas
1970s British drama television series
1975 British television series debuts
1975 British television series endings
English-language television shows

The Venturers


In February 2019, massive forest fires broke out in numerous places across the Bandipur National Park of the Karnataka state in India. The National Remote Sensing Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) carried out an assessment of the total area affected by the fire. On 25 February 2019, it estimated the extent of burnt area to be about 10,920 acres in the last five days since 21 February 2019.

Though the major fire was brought under control by 24 February 2019, some areas continued to burn. The fire also spread to Mudumalai forest range in Tamil Nadu, causing damage in around 40 acres. The Tamil Nadu forest department took action to ensure that it did not spread further.

Background
On 21 February 2019, wildfire broke out in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve. Unlike in previous years, this is the first time the wildfire in Bandipur flared up earlier due to the sudden climatic change and rapid growth of dry grass and Lantana. Officials reported that there appeared to have been no deaths of the larger mammals in the Park, such as bison, elephants, leopard and tiger.

Over 10,000 acres of forest in Bandipur area was destroyed. With the fire spreading rapidly due to winds, the authorities closed the Gundlupet-Ooty National highway and safaris in Bandipur National Park were also cancelled. Strong winds were making the job of firefighters, forest staff and volunteers more difficult.

The fire that destroyed Kundakere Range, spread to Barakatte and Guddakere, then to the Himavathi Gopalaswamy Hills. It also destroyed forests in Jarkal Kere and Gowri Kalu hills. Many smaller mammals and reptiles were killed, along with thousands of trees. There had been no forest-fire incidents noted in Bandipur National Park in the previous two years.

Firefighting

Two Mi-17 Indian Air Force helicopters were deployed on 25 February 2019 afternoon to douse the fire, which had been raging for three days in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve. The operation on 25 February 2019 was primarily limited to the Gopalaswamy Hills Range in Karnataka's Chamarajanagar district. The other two ranges that were seriously affected were Kundakere and Bandipur. The helicopters were deployed after Karnataka state Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy called on the Indian Air Force for help. One proceeded towards Karadikal hill ranges while the other fought fires in the general area of Chammana halla top.

Bolagudda and Kanive temple area were also subject to helicopter fire control A total of 10 sorties were flown, dropping approximately 30,000 litres of water.

Damage assessment

Satellite images shown the extent of the damage caused by the wildfire. The National Remote Sensing Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Hyderabad, released a report based on Sentinel-2 satellite data, which reported that 15,443.27 acres of forest area damaged by the fire between 23 February 2019 and 25 February 2019 in Bandipur forest region alone. Nature Conservation Foundation's Wildlife Scientist Mysore Doreswamy Madhusudan estimated that 17,000 acres would have been affected since the National Remote Sensing Centre excluded the damage in administratively part of Bandipur (Revenue land).

Number of casualties due to fire has not estimated yet. Wildlife officials say that small animals, reptiles, which are slow-moving, would have borne the brunt, while bigger mammals like leopards and tigers would have fled to the Bandipur Tiger Reserve and taken refuge in nearby areas.

Investigation
Karnataka's top forest official confirmed that an "act of sabotage" had caused the blaze. Forest officials have arrested two shepherds for allegedly setting fire to the forest. Fearing tiger attacks on their cattle in Bandipur, on 22 February 2019 they had sparked the fire to chase away a tiger which was spotted in the area for a month or so, leading to massive fire, which destroyed thousands of acres of Bandipur forest area. The accused were booked under Indian section 27, 29, 30, 31, 40 , 50 and 51 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
Many people say that the forest officials were correct to arrest them

Gallery

See also
 List of wildfires
 2016 Uttarakhand forest fires

References

External links

2019 disasters in India
2019 wildfires
February 2019 events in India
Fires in India
Disasters in Karnataka
Natural disasters in India
Chamarajanagar district
2010s in Karnataka
Wildfires in Asia
2019 fires in Asia

2019 Bandipur forest fires


Sometimes, governments create idealized images of people. Very often, these people are current or former leaders of the country. What will then result is a cult of personality, or cult of the leader. Techniques such as mass media, propaganda, fake news, spectacle, the arts and patriotism are used to create this image. The leader is shown as a hero, with few or no negative traits. Social engineering is also used very often, especially  in sta in one-party states and dominant-party states. A cult of personality often accompanies the leader of a totalitarian or authoritarian countries. It can also be seen in some monarchies, theocracies, and failed democracies.

Politics

Cult of personality