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News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Tokamaks | Different approaches around the world

    Look east, look west ... tokamak projects are underway in different parts of the world. All of them are benefiting from and complementing the pioneering work al [...]

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  • Construction site | A guide to work underway

    Just like the ITER worksite, drone photography is also making progress. This view of the ITER platform is the sharpest and most detailed of all those we have pu [...]

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  • Vacuum vessel repair | A portfolio

    Whether standing vertically in the Assembly Hall or lying horizontally in the former Cryostat Workshop now assigned to component repair operations, the non-conf [...]

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  • European Physical Society | ITER presents its new plans

    The new ITER baseline and its associated research plan were presented last week at the 50th annual conference of the European Physical Society Plasma Physics Di [...]

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  • Image of the week | The platform's quasi-final appearance

    Since preparation work began in 2007 on the stretch of land that was to host the 42-hectare ITER platform, regular photographic surveys have been organized to d [...]

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Of Interest

See archived entries

ITER NEWSLINE -

The 3:30 a.m. procession



The scene is now familiar. It is a few hours before sunrise and a long procession of motorcycles, trucks and trailers slowly progresses towards the ITER gates. Everything is bathed is multi-coloured light ─ the pulsating blue of the Gendarmerie vans and motorcycles, the gyrating orange of the technical vehicles, and the blinding white of the headlights...

Familiar, but never routine. Every transport convoy—every "Highly Exceptional Load"—is an event in itself. After all, 300-ton loads (twice the weight of an Airbus A300) are not that frequent on the roads of Provence.

On Friday 10 June, at 3:30 a.m., the first of a series of three transformers arrived for ITER's pulsed power electrical network (PPEN)—the network that will feed power to the heating and control systems during plasma pulses.

Procured by the Chinese Domestic Agency, the three units are massive structures that will weigh approximately 460 tonnes each when completely filled with insulating oil and fitted out with the proper "bushings."

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