General Atomics completes giant magnet for international fusion energy project
The giant magnet prior to the unveiling ceremony at General Atomics Photo by JW August Times of San Diego Sitting inside a building in a Poway industrial park is the upshot of nearly years of work by General Atomics the last piece of a massive magnet bound for France where it will be a central component of an experimental nuclear fusion reactor It is one piece in the challenging task of creating a clean nearly limitless power source based on the same process that powers the Sun The -pound magnet is heading to the port of Galveston Texas and then onto France eventually arriving at the international research project called ITER about miles from the seaport of Marseille There was a celebration Thursday in Poway where employees of San Diego-based General Atomics as well as dignitaries and the media gathered for what company CEO Neal Blue called a momentous achievement Rep Scott Peters mentioned that when it s completed ITER will demonstrate the awe-inspiring anticipated that the power will have and was built right here by you an extraordinary gang of scientists engineers and technicians He congratulated the General Atomics band as did San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria who disclosed This is big deal stuff But I would tell you as the mayor of this city what I particularly appreciate about GA is that this company for years now has been providing high-quality good-paying jobs for San Diegans San Diegans like my dad who retired from GA John Smith director of engineering at the company led growth of the magnets He declared ITER is one of the majority of ambitious science projects in history equating it with the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb or the moon landing in Ananta Krisharian a senior vice president declared the undertaking will demonstrate a viable path to fusion force in the s More than billion of private venture stake Krisharian mentioned has been made to create a structure of startup companies that are all working on progressing the designs for commercial fusion power plants The hoped-for payoff he explained is going to be immense Fusion offers the promise of virtually limitless clean safe force that is invariably available he added This is the kind of potential that s going to power our cities in the future The massive magnet is the last of seven similar cylindrical modules designed and built by General Atomics This last module will be used as a spare the other six will eventually be stacked one on top of the other creating a magnet five stories high and weighing tons The stack is called the Central Solenoid and will sit in the center of the ITER facility Several speakers referred to it as the beating heart of the -acre ITER project which is expected to begin operation in The magnets will generate an extremely high field for short durations to provide a protective envelope during the fusion process in which hydrogen atoms combine to form helium converting matter to force in the process It s what powers the sun and stars General Atomics scientists say the magnets are so powerful they could lift an aircraft carrier out of the water Thirty-five nations are contributing their expertise and components to ITER including China and Russia While the U S only pays about of the costs of the project it is entitled to full access to the project s information Peters noted that California is already the fourth largest commercial sector in the world and predicted this mechanism has the probable to become a trillion worldwide industry further strengthening California as an economic force So what are the next strategies announced Smith We need to take the lessons we learned in this project and apply them to the future commercial enterprise the commercial fusion ecosystem that s right around the corner from us
