Abstract

Nuclear fusion is the energy source of the sun and other stars. Fusion research has the long-term aim of reproducing this process on earth and using it as a potentially sustainable source of energy for millennia to come. In the last few years it has been possible with the technique of magnetic confinement to produce considerable amounts of energy from D-T plasmas and to almost reach the so-called break-even point. The next step will be to create a magnetically confined plasma that goes well beyond the break-even point and produces at least ten times as much fusion power as that required for the external heating. This is the aim of the inter­national ITER experiment in Cadarache, France, which is intended to demonstrate the feasibility of nuclear fusion for energy production under power plant conditions and to test some of the key technologies.