President Macron and India’s PM Modi have met in Marseille to visit the £16.6 billion ITER Project. (Image: Getty)
French President and Indian Prime Minister met in Marseille, a southern French city, on Wednesday (February 12) to showcase their ties.
The two leaders will visit the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor or ITER project, the site of a groundbreaking to revolutionise energy production. The visit will be focused on trade, nuclear energy, and defence cooperation.
Known as the world’s largest science experiment, it aims to master nuclear fusion and create a “mini sun”.
ITER has already been described as the most expensive science experiment, the most complicated engineering project, and one of the most ambitious human collaborations since the development of the and the Large Hadron Collider.
Speaking to last year, Laban Coblentz, the project’s spokesperson, said: “We are building arguably the most complex machine ever designed.”
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The project aims to show that nuclear fusion, which powers the Sun, can be used to create energy. (Image: Getty)
India has played a crucial part in this , contributing 10% of the costs and building the cryostat that houses the nuclear reactor.
The project, which began construction in 2013, aims to show that , the same process that powers the Sun, can be used to create energy.
The focus is on magnetic confinement fusion, a method that uses a large chamber and a tiny amount of fuel to create fusion reactions that release a tremendous amount of energy. According to the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, one gram of fuel could generate 90,000 kilowatt-hours of energy—the equivalent of 11 tonnes (11,000 kilos) of .
While traditional nuclear power uses fission, which involves splitting uranium atoms to release energy and which produces , fusion involves combining hydrogen atoms – which also produces energy but without the dangerous waste products.
The downside to nuclear fusion is that it requires very high temperatures, like those in the Sun. Thus, the plasma inside the ITER reactor is expected to reach around 150 million degrees Celsius, which is roughly ten times hotter than the Sun’s core temperature.
To contain this superheated plasma, ITER uses powerful magnetic fields to keep it away from the reactor’s walls.
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The initial budget was close to £5 billion, but the total cost is projected to be as high as £18.3 billion. (Image: Getty)
President Macron and I reached Marseille a short while ago. This visit will witness important programmes aimed at further connecting India and France. The Indian consulate which is being inaugurated will deepen people-to-people linkages. I will also pay homage to the Indian…
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi)
However, building such a complex and unique machine has been met with challenges, including delays and a much higher budget than expected.
The initial budget was close to £5 billion, but the total cost of construction and operations is projected to be between £15 and £18.3 billion. Other estimates place the total cost between £36 and £52 billion, though ITER disputes these figures.
Over 30 countries have teamed up for the project, which is funded and run by seven member parties, including China, the , India, Japan, and the US. Following , the UK continued to participate in ITER through the EU’s Fusion for Energy (F4E) program.
According to recent updates, ITER is expected to reach its first operation around 2034, with full operations planned for 2039 – a significant delay from previous timelines due to technical challenges and manufacturing delays.
As part of the visit, the two leaders have already co-chaired the AI Action Summit and addressed the 14th India-France CEO Forum in . Mr Modi and Mr Macron also visited the historic Mazargues Cemetery to pay tribute to the Indian soldiers who made sacrifices in .