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Latest ITER Newsline
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Open Doors Day | An intense and unforgettable experience
Saturday was Jacques's birthday. At age 90, the long-retired engineer from Aix-en-Provence had only one item on his wish list: to visit ITER for a third time an [...]
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Power conversion | A potent illustration of the "One ITER" spirit
Europe made the buildings; the piping came from India; China and Korea provided the transformers; Russia manufactured the massive 'busbar' network. The ITER Org [...]
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Fusion world | Upgrade completed on DIII-D tokamak
The DIII-D National Fusion Program (US) has completed a series of important enhancements to its fusion facility, providing researchers with several first-of-a-k [...]
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Vacuum lab | Ensuring leak test sensitivity
A helium leak test is one of several factory acceptance tests planned for the sectors of the ITER vacuum vessel before they are shipped to ITER. In a vacuum lab [...]
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Bookmark | The Future of Fusion Energy
To write about fusion is to walk a fine line between the temptation of lyricism and the arid demands of scientific accuracy. Whereas the general media tends to [...]
ITER NEWSLINE -
Home at last
Passing through Saint Paul-lez-Durance (pop. 987), the last village before arriving at ITER.
There's a strange beauty to the transport of ITER components. It comes from the revolving lights piercing the night, from the slow progress of the trailer and its escort of a dozen vehicles, from the deserted roads and sleeping villages...
For three nights, from 4 to 7 May, the second Highly Exceptional Load (HEL) to be delivered to ITER made its way along the ITER Itinerary. A few minutes past 3:00 a.m., on Thursday 7 May, two large trailers—each loaded with a 79-ton cylindrical tank—passed the gate of the ITER site.
Five weeks after the US-procured components had embarked for their transatlantic voyage and 11 days after they were unloaded at Marseille's industrial harbour in Fos-sur-Mer, the tanks had reached their home at last.
The final leg of the voyage, from the village Meyrargues to the ITER site, was uneventful—which is the best possible result for such a delicate logistics operation. The schedule was respected and even improved by half an hour. By mid-afternoon both tanks had been unloaded and carefully stored into the large hangar at the entrance to ITER Headquarters.
Out in the open they resembled giant beer kegs. In the hangar, they looked like the segments of a star-bound rocket.
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