Gandhinagar: Director General of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), being built in France with the help of 35 countries including US, EU, Russia, Japan, China, Korea and India to explore the possibility of making fusion, the process with which sun and stars produce energy, happen in guided and artificial manner to meet the energy requirements of the world, Dr Bernard Bigot today said that with such a process the life time energy requirements of a human being can be fulfilled with just 50 liters of water and 2 grams of Lithium.

He also said that with the abundance of both water and Lithium on earth, the energy requirements of 10 billion inhabitants could be taken care of for 100 million years through fusion process.

Addressing a press conference at Nirma University here Bigot, who also was the chief guest of 26 th convocation ceremony of the private university, said that it was a dream that the ITER experiment succeeds and fusion energy provides a sustainable alternative to the current fossil based resources which were also taking a toll on the environment. He said that fusion energy would be a breakthrough for humanity.

The renowned nuclear scientist informed the the ITER project that started in 2007 has so far seen the completion of 60% of the construction of the device. In 2025 a critical stage called first plasma would be achieved and by 2035 it would be fully operational. The challenge would be heat up 2 gms of hydrogen in a large vacuum vessel of around 1000 cubic meter to the temperature of 150 million degrees which was around 10 times the temperature of the core of the sun. At this temperature the hydrogen nucleus would merge to produce Helium, neutrons and huge amount of energy which would be much more than the energy required to make this fusion happen. This heat would be converted in to electricity.

He also said that the challenge was not only to make this fusion at lab scale but also to make it economically competitive and Industrially achievable

He said,’ ITER in Latin means the way. Fusion is the way to safe massive long term energy availability and in order to demonstrate that that we could master the technology, 35 countries including have join hands to built the device which would allow to demonstrate that we have net massive production of fusion power.
It started in 2007 and would be built in 25 years. We will reach a critical milestone in 2025 what we call first plasma by when all the main peaces of the devices would well assembled and after that we will run it to full fusion power by 2035. We are pleased that we have completed the construction of this device to around 60 % of what was needed from design to commissioning.’

‘The challenge is to be able to heat up 2 gm of hydrogen in a large vacuum vessel of nearly 1000 cubic meter and to reach a temp of 150 million of degrees which is 10 times the temperature of core of the sun,’ he said adding that the basic idea is to demonstrate and show that it is physically achievable. It and economically competitive. It should not only be a lab demo but should also be achievable at industrial scale,’ he said.

He said that when the humanity depended on renewable energy alone, it had to toil and work hard and the life expectancy was quite low at below 35 years. After that when the use of fossil fuel or the interim storage of solar energy was started as the life expectancy increased. Today with fossil energy we were getting every person was virtually served by 450 people working for him 24 hours a day. But this kind of consumption of fossil energy was not sustainable and we needed alternative.’ With fossil fuel we are also spoiling the atmosphere so we need an alternative option and this could be fusion power which is safe sustainbale but its like dream and let this dream come true,’ he said.

DeshGujarat