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

  • Image of the week | More cladding and a new message

    As the October sun sets on the ITER worksite, the cladding of the neutral beam power buildings takes on a golden hue. One after the other, each of the scientifi [...]

    Read more

  • Cryodistribution | Cold boxes 20 years in the making

    Twenty years—that is how long it took to design, manufacture and deliver the cold valve boxes that regulate the flow of cryogens to the tokamak's vacuum system. [...]

    Read more

  • Open Doors Day | Face to face with ITER immensity

    In October 2011, when ITER organized its first 'Open Doors Day,' there was little to show and much to leave to the public's imagination: the Poloidal Field [...]

    Read more

  • Fusion | Turning neutrons into electricity

    How will the power generated by nuclear fusion reactions be converted into electricity? That is not a question that ITER has been designed to answer explicitly, [...]

    Read more

  • Fusion world | JET completes a storied 40-year run

    In its final deuterium-tritium experimental campaign, Europe's JET tokamak device demonstrated plasma scenarios that are expected on ITER and future fusion powe [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

Ten years ago preparation works began on the ITER site

On 29 January 2007, ten years ago almost to the day, preparation work began on the large stretch of national forest that was to host the ITER site.

Taken in the early spring of 2007, this aerial view of the ITER site (looking northeast) shows the vast expanse of land that has already been cleared. (Click to view larger version...)
Taken in the early spring of 2007, this aerial view of the ITER site (looking northeast) shows the vast expanse of land that has already been cleared.
Part of France's commitment to the ITER Project, the works were performed under the responsibility of Agence Iter France, an agency of the French Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA) that had been established three months earlier. France was to deliver a perfectly flat platform and some cleared areas to accommodate buildings, parking spaces, roads, etc. Of the 180 hectares made available by France, half were to be equipped, the other half left untouched.

To create a level, 42-hectare platform for the scientific installation, about half of the surface needed to be excavated and the other half filled. In total, over a period of less than two years, more than 3 million cubic metres of rock and soil were moved—equivalent in volume to the Cheops pyramid.

In the course of their investigations, archaeologists were to identify a small necropolis dating from the 5th to 7th century AD. (Click to view larger version...)
In the course of their investigations, archaeologists were to identify a small necropolis dating from the 5th to 7th century AD.
But before letting in the chainsaws, scrapers and earth-moving equipment, a few delicate and important tasks needed to be performed: scores of "remarkable trees" were identified for preservation; specific measures were implemented to protect some of the native species (beetles, bats, etc.) that made the forest their home and—in conformity with French regulations—archaeologists began digging in search of buried structures and artefacts.

By April, the area was cleared and ready for the spectacular levelling works that were finalized in the spring of 2009.

Click here to view a drone flyover of the ITER construction site, ten years after the early preparation works began.




return to the latest published articles