Subscribe options

Select your newsletters:

Please enter your email address:

@

Your email address will only be used for the purpose of sending you the ITER Organization publication(s) that you have requested. ITER Organization will not transfer your email address or other personal data to any other party or use it for commercial purposes.

If you change your mind, you can easily unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe option at the bottom of an email you've received from ITER Organization.

For more information, see our Privacy policy.

News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Test facility | How do electronics react to magnetic fields?

    A tokamak is basically a magnetic cage designed to confine, shape and control the super-hot plasmas that make fusion reactions possible. Inside the ITER Tokamak [...]

    Read more

  • ITER Robots | No two alike

    More than 500 students took part in the latest ITER Robots challenge. Working from the same instructions and technical specifications, they had worked in teams [...]

    Read more

  • Data archiving | Operating in quasi real time

    To accommodate the first real-time system integrated with the ITER control system, new components of the data archiving system have been deployed. Data archivi [...]

    Read more

  • Repairs | Setting the stage for a critical task

    Like in a game of musical chairs—albeit in slow motion and at a massive scale—components in the Assembly Hall are being transferred from one location to another [...]

    Read more

  • Image of the week | There is life on Planet ITER

    Dated April 2023, this new image of the ITER "planet" places the construction site squarely in the middle. One kilometre long, 400 metres wide, the IT [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

ITER NEWSLINE -

Regulator notes efforts on safety culture

Experts from the French Nuclear Safety Authority, accompanied by technical specialists from the Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety, have carried out 15 on-site inspections since 2011 (here on 3 December 2015). On 5 January 2016, ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot and the head of the Nuclear Safety & Environmental Protection Division, Joelle Elbez-Uzan, presented an overview of the ITER installation's status to the ASN Board of Commissioners. (Click to view larger version...)
Experts from the French Nuclear Safety Authority, accompanied by technical specialists from the Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety, have carried out 15 on-site inspections since 2011 (here on 3 December 2015). On 5 January 2016, ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot and the head of the Nuclear Safety & Environmental Protection Division, Joelle Elbez-Uzan, presented an overview of the ITER installation's status to the ASN Board of Commissioners.
The French Nuclear Safety Authority (Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire, ASN) regularly asks the nuclear operators in France to present an overview of the status of their installation in terms of nuclear safety and radiation protection.  This consultation is requested and carried out by an independent board of commissioners (le Collège). 

In this context, ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot and the head of the Nuclear Safety & Environmental Protection Division, Joelle Elbez-Uzan, met with the ASN Collège on 6 January 2016. They reported on the changes in project organization since the arrival of the new Director-General, the progress of the ITER construction site, and major future milestones.

The ASN acknowledged the efforts of ITER Organization to improve the monitoring of external contractors and to establish a safety culture since the previous interview of ITER management in July 2014. The ASN will continue to pay particular attention to these topics in the months to come.

Progress of R&D work with respect to safety was also noted, as well as actions that remain to be completed, in particular on detritiation. On the subject of radioactive waste, the ITER Organization is studying several options for radwaste optimization, interim storage, and cooling either in the facility or off-site; the Organization plans to submit the selected options to the ASN at the end of 2016. The ASN Collège has requested that technical discussions on these subjects be organized in 2016.

The ASN took note of project delays—some of several years—which so far have not impacted the safety of the facility. The ASN has asked the ITER Organization to commit to a new detailed schedule for reporting, in line with the revised project schedule.

return to the latest published articles