A visit to ITER
Last month, Adrian Peckitt, Nuclear Supply Chain Specialist at Nuclear South West headed down to the south of France and took advantage of the opportunity to liaise with French nuclear organisations and visit the impressive ITER site.
The UK Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) and the French equivalent, GIFEN, the trade association of the French nuclear industry, held an event in Aix-en-Provence to promote collaboration between UK and French companies working in the nuclear sector.
A B2B networking day was held at Cadarache Castle, attended by representatives from approximately 35 companies from the UK and France. The day provided the opportunity for companies to liaise with equivalent companies from across the Channel, making key connections and holding valuable conversations. The day also included presentations from both NIA and GIFEN, the British embassy and Egis, the sponsors for the day. These covered updates on all things nuclear from a UK and French perspective.
On the final day, the NIA organized a trip to the ITER site. ITER is one of the most ambitious energy projects in the world today, with 35 countries collaborating to create the largest tokamak, a magnetic fusion device designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy. 49 people attended the visit representing both UK and French companies.
The ITER team provided a presentation on the project’s progress to date and their plans to achieve first plasma. The ITER team were very open with the challenges that they have faced and shared examples of when things had not gone to plan. Some of the technical challenges facing the engineering teams were staggering, in particular how to manage the extreme temperature difference between the internal reactor surfaces and the required magnet temperatures.
The group were lucky enough to take a tour of the facility under construction, including the main reactor hall and ITER machine, which was awe inspiring.
To find out more about ITER visit their website.