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 Selling tokamaks was one of the business strategies recently presented by five students from a school in Dülken, Germany who were participating in a management game called "Jugend gründet". In this game, young students between the age of 16 and 21 start their own business — fictionally - and experience the bulls and bears of the global financial stock market.
Equipped with information researched over the internet or supplied by the German fusion research centres in Jülich and Karlsruhe, and armed with a model of the ITER Tokamak, Nicolas, Constantin, Magnus, Tobias and Frederik submitted their project - as did 4500 other students - and made it into the final that took place in Wolfsburg last Saturday.
Selling tokamaks sounds like a rather unique business - at least for the time being. When asked why they chose this project, 17 year-old Magnus Schückes replied: "With only two litres of water and 250 grams of minerals we can supply a four-person household with energy for one year. Our company "FusionEnergy" is producing and selling the "nucFusion Reactor" which will solve our energy problems and is based on the promising tokamak concept."
They presented their most-convincing arguments to investors at the fictional business fair, and described the process. "Fusion power plants will achieve economic and environment-friendly energy. The nucFusion reactor breeds Lithium to Tritium and fuses it with Deuterium; Helium is the result and energy is set free. For fusion to take place, high temperatures and density are necessary. With sophisticated tokamak physics and stellarator research the plasma field will effectively be locked in by strong magnets," explains Magnus, showing he did his homework and understood the concept.
And the concept paid off. Gentle on our resources, future-orientated, safe, environment-friendly: "Our future-proof Strategy: FusionEnergy" won 7th place.
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 Staff from ITER Organization, Fusion for Energy and Agence ITER France gathered for a ceremony on the construction platform marking the end of the site preparation works and the beginning of the next phase: building ITER. May 2009
The roundabout at the future entrance to ITER has been specially designed to allow the enormous transport vehicles carrying elements for the Tokamak to access the site. Credit AIF VDC.
2.5 million cubic metres of earth and rock were moved during the preparation of the ITER platform - equivalent in volume to the Pyramid of Cheops. Credit: AIF PAF
The Tokamak complex and all supporting buildings will be constructed on the ITER platform, which is one kilometre long by 400 metres wide. Building construction will continue until 2017. Credit AIF VDC.
Guests at the ITER Visitor Centre have a panoramic view over the entire construction site. Credit AIF VDC.
Massive roadworks are underway to support the transport of the ITER machine pieces. Here, next to the legendary Pont Mirabeau, construction continues steadily...
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