A searing stretch of hot, dry weather, coupled with rising water use, could prolong a drought that's far from over.
Forecasters said that the Charlotte area faces at least another week of temperatures in the 90s. Highs normally reach only the mid-80s this time of year. The June 5 high reached 95 degrees at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, the warmest reading so far this year.
Highs were in the middle to upper 90s today across the Piedmont and South Carolina.
Highs for the next eight days are forecast between 96 a d 98 degrees. Forecasters see little or no chance of rainfall in the area through at least June 11. Some computer models show the heat wave continuing for at least 10 days.
A heat advisory was issued June 6 in the Sandhills, where the heat index - a combination of heat and dewpoint temperatures - is forecast to reach 105 degrees. Anson, Richmond and Scotland counties of North Carolina and Chesterfield County in South Carolina are included in that advisory.
Heat index readings climbed above 100 the past few days. Forecasters also are predicting Code Orange ozone levels. Code Orange ozone levels are potentially unhealthy for asthmatics, children and seniors.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities customers promptly broke June's daily conservation goal by pumping 128 million gallons on Sunday. The surge was predictable as gardeners water blooming shrubs and vegetable patches, said conservation coordinator Maeneen Klein.
Mandatory water restrictions allow lawn watering only one day a week, but drip irrigation and hoses can be used anytime. "As long as people are following the rules and putting water where it's needed the most, we think it's a sustainable practice," she said.
Klein credits customers for taking conservation to heart. This month's 115 million-gallon-a-day goal compares to the 141 million gallons Charlotteans averaged last June, before restrictions took hold.
A drought-advisory group for the Catawba River basin, which in early April recommended utilities resume limited lawn irrigation, will review conditions again on June 25. The roots of this drought trace to May 2007, the first in a string of dry months that lasted until December. Conditions improved through the winter and spring but turned dry again last month.
Mecklenburg and its neighbors are among 28 N.C. counties still in extreme drought. Only 11 counties had been that dry in late April. Charlotte's rainfall deficit since January is 3.6 inches, but the past 12 months have been the driest June-to-June on record in the southern Piedmont.
Still, federal forecasters expect the drought in the Carolinas' western halves to improve through August. Three-month forecasts predict neither unusually high nor low summer temperatures and rainfall. The region's major water supplies are also faring better than they did last year.
As the drought deepened, Duke Energy resisted estimating how many days' water was left in its Catawba reservoirs, saying projections would probably be wrong. Some critics complained that local utilities, guided by the newly created drought group, were too slow to restrict water use. This year lakes on both the Catawba, Charlotte's water source, and the Yadkin River to the east are near or above targeted levels.
To save water, Duke began cutting back use of its hydroelectric plants last summer, generating 58 percent less hydro power this January through May than in the same period last year. Duke could also draw down its largest reservoir, Lake Norman, by nearly 3 extra feet if needed this year because of changes to the cooling-water piping at its McGuire nuclear plant.
But streams that feed the Catawba lakes are at only 46 percent of their long-term averages, compared to 89 percent a year ago. Groundwater still hasn't recovered. Rising temperatures also mean more water lost to evaporation: up to 300 million gallons from the Catawba reservoirs on a single hot day.
"Conservation is just as important as it was last year," said Duke spokeswoman Marilyn Lineberger.
Jordan-Saudi Electricity Linkage Project connects NEPCO and Saudi National Electricity Company to launch feasibility studies, advancing cross-border grid interconnection, Arab electricity linkage goals, and enhancing power reliability, stability, and energy security in both countries.
Key Points
A bilateral grid interconnection by NEPCO and Saudi Electricity Co. to improve reliability and stability.
✅ Enables joint technical and financial feasibility studies
✅ Improves cross-border grid reliability and stability
✅ Part of Arab electricity linkage; supports energy security
The Jordanian Cabinet on has approved the memorandum of understanding to implement the electricity linkage project between Jordan and Saudi Arabia, echoing regional steps such as Lebanon's electricity sector reform to modernize power governance.
The memo will be signed between the National Electric Power Company(NEPCO) and the Saudi National Electricity Company, mirroring cross-border efforts like CEA-Mexico electricity cooperation to strengthen regional interconnections.
The agreement will enable the two sides to initiate technical and financial feasibility studies for the project, which aims to enhance the stability and reliability of electricity networks in both countries, aligning with measures to secure power such as Ireland's electricity supply plan pursued internationally.
The initial feasibility studies, which came as part of the comprehensive Arab electricity linkage issued by the Arab League in 2014, had shown the possibility of implementing the Jordanian-Saudi linkage, as electricity markets evolve in places like Alberta electricity market changes toward new designs.
Also on Wednesday, the Government approved the third amendment to the grant agreement provided by the EU for a programme of financial inclusion through improving the governance and the spread of micro-financing in Jordan.
Jordan and the EU signed the grant agreement on December 14, 2014 to support the general budget.
The Cabinet also approved the recommendations of the ministerial team tasked with overseeing the annual and financial plans of public credit funds in the Kingdom.
The recommendations included establishing a guidance office to introduce the governmental lending programmes and windows within Iradah centres affiliated with the Planning and International Cooperation Ministry.
The Council of Ministers decided to oblige the government institutions to execute all of their correspondences to the Jordan Customs Department (JCD) electronically.
The decision also includes cancelling the provision of 55 JCD services by conventional paper works and to be provided only online.
The council also approved the outcomes of the study to restructure the governmental body.
The outcomes proposed activating the Higher Health Council, cancelling the independence of the Vocational and Technical Employment Training Fund transferring its functions to the Employment and Development Fund, and activating the National ICT Centre.
The government has cancelled the National Fund to Support Sports and the Scientific Support Fund.
BC Hydro Site C and Clean Energy Policy shapes B.C.'s power mix, affecting run-of-river hydro, net metering for rooftop solar, independent power producers, and surplus capacity forecasts tied to LNG Canada demand.
Key Points
BC Hydro's strategy centers on Site C, limiting new run-of-river projects and tightening net metering amid surplus power
✅ Site C adds long-term capacity with lower projected rates.
✅ Net metering limits deter oversized rooftop solar.
Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. is celebrating the official commissioning today of what may be the last large run-of-river hydro project in B.C. for years to come.
The project – two new generating stations on the Upper Lillooet River and Boulder Creek in the Pemberton Valley – actually began producing power in 2017, but the official commissioning was delayed until Friday September 14.
Innergex, which earlier this year bought out Vancouver’s Alterra Power, invested $491 million in the two run-of-river hydro-electric projects, which have a generating capacity of 106 megawatts of power. The project has the generating capacity to power 39,000 homes.
The commissioning happened to coincide with an address by BC Hydro CEO Chris O’Riley to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade Friday, in which he provided an update on the progress of the $10.7-billion Site C dam project.
That project has put an end, for the foreseeable future, of any major new run-of-river projects like the Innergex project in Pemberton.
BC Hydro expects the new dam to produce a surplus of power when it is commissioned in November 2024, so no new clean energy power calls are expected for years to come.
Independent power producers aren’t the only ones who have seen a decline in opportunities to make money in B.C. providing renewable power, as the Siwash Creek project shows. So will homeowners who over-build their own solar power systems, in an attempt to make money from power sales.
There are about 1,300 homeowners in B.C. with rooftop solar systems, and when they produce surplus power, they can sell it to BC Hydro.
BC Hydro is amending the net metering program to discourage homeowners from over-building. In some cases, some howeowners have been generating 40% to 50% more power than they need.
“We were getting installations that were massively over-sized for their load, and selling this big quantity of power to us,” O’Riley said. “And that was never the idea of the program.”
Going forward, BC Hydro plans to place limits on how much power a homeowner can sell to BC Hydro.
BC Hydro has been criticized for building Site C when the demand for power has been generally flat, and reliance on out-of-province electricity has drawn scrutiny. But O’Riley said the dam isn’t being built for today’s generation, but the next.
“We’re not building Site C for today,” he said. “We have an energy surplus for the short term. We’re not even building it for 2024. We’re building it for the next 100 years.”
O’Riley acknowledged Site C dam has been a contentious and “extremely challenging” project. It has faced numerous court challenges, a late-stage review by the BC Utilities Commission, cost overruns, geotechnical problems and a dispute with the main contractors.
In a separate case, the province was ordered to pay $10 million over the denial of a Squamish power project, highlighting broader legal risk.
But those issues have been resolved, O’Riley said, and the project is back on track with a new construction schedule.
“As we move forward, we have a responsibility to deliver a project on time and against the new revised budget, and I’m confident the changes we’ve made are set up to do that,” O’Riley said.
Currently, there are about 3,300 workers employed on the dam project.
Despite criticisms that BC Hydro is investing in a legacy mega-project at a time when cost of wind and solar have been falling, O’Riley insisted that Site C was the best and lowest cost option.
“First, it’s the lowest cost option,” he said. “We expect over the first 20 years of Site C’s operating life, our customers will see rates 7% to 10% below what it would otherwise be using the alternatives.”
BC Hydro missed a critical window to divert the Peace River, something that can only be done in September, during lower river flows. That added a full year’s delay to the project.
O’Riley said BC Hydro had built in a one-year contingency into the project, so he expects the project can still be completed by 2024 – the original in-service target date. But the delay will add more than $2 billion to the last budget estimate, boosting the estimated capital cost from $8.3 billion to $10.7 billion.
Meeting the 2024 in-service target date could be important, if Royal Dutch Shell and its consortium partners make a final investment decision this year on the $40 billion LNG Canada project.
That project also has a completion target date of 2024, and would be a major new industrial customer with a substantial power draw for operations.
“If they make a decision to go forward, they will be a very big customer of BC Hydro,” O’Riley told Business in Vancouver. “They would be in our top three or four biggest customers.”
BC Hydro COVID-19 Site C updates detail monitoring, self-isolation at the work camp, Northern Health coordination, social distancing, reduced staffing, progress on diversion tunnels, Highway 29 realignment, and public reports to Peace River Regional District.
Key Points
Regular reports on COVID-19 monitoring, isolation protocols, staffing, and Site C work with Northern Health.
✅ Daily updates to Peace River Regional District
✅ Isolation rooms reserved in camp dorms
✅ Construction continues with social distancing
BC Hydro says it will begin giving regular updates to the public and the Peace River Regional District about its monitoring of the coronavirus COVID-19 at Site C, reflecting broader industry alerts such as a U.S. grid warning on pandemic risks.
BC Hydro met with the Peace River Regional District Sunday via phone call to discuss the forthcoming measures.
"We did a make a commitment to provide regular updates to Peace River Regional District member communities on an ongoing basis," said spokesman Dave Conway.
"(It's) certainly one of the things that we heard that they want and we heard that strongly and repeatedly."
Conway said updates could be posted as early as Monday on BC Hydro's website for the project.
As of March 23, there were sixteen people in self-isolation at the work camp just outside Fort St. John. Conway did not know how many of the workers have been tested for the virus, but said there are no confirmed cases on site. Provincial guidelines are being followed, he said.
"If they show any of the following symptoms, so sneezing, sore throat, muscle aches, headaches, coughs, or difficulty breathing, they're isolated for 14 days," Conway said.
"We're being very cautious of our application of the guidelines. We're asking anybody to self isolate if they have any slight symptoms."
BC Hydro has set aside one 30-room dorm at the camp for workers who need to isolate themselves, similar to measures in other jurisdictions where the power industry may house staff on-site to maintain operations, and has another four dorms with another 120 rooms that can be used as necessary. Conway could not immediately say whether additional rooms at hotels or at its apartment block have also been reserved.
There have been 700 workers home since a scale-back in construction was announced on March 18, and more workers are expected to be sent home this week. There were 940 people in camp on March 23, Conway said.
"To put that into perspective, the number of people staying in camp at this time of year, based on previous years, usually averages around 1,700," Conway said.
Brad Sperling, board chair for the Peace River Regional District, said BC Hydro has committed to formulating a strategy over the next few days to keep local government and public informed.
Electoral director Karen Goodings said she was pleased by that, and that it's important to everyone that BC Hydro works with Northern Health and adheres to provincial guidelines.
"The senior governments are critical to what measures will be undertaken not only on the project, including the camp, but also on the rules around transportation of workers and on addressing workplace conduct investigations at other utilities," Goodings wrote in an email.
On Sunday, the Site C leisure bus was seen at Totem Mall with two passengers on board.
Conway said the ongoing use of the shuttle is being monitored and evaluated, and is operating under social distancing and extra cleaning guidelines aligned with public transportation changes that have come under BC Transit.
The bus makes 10 trips per day from the camp, with an average of two passengers per trip, Conway said.
"We still have, of course, people in camp, and it's an opportunity for guests to get out and go for a walk and re-provision themselves for essentials for personal needs," Conway said.
Construction of the river diversion tunnels continues to meet a fall deadline, while work also carries on to realign Highway 29, build the transmission line, and clear the valley and future reservoir. Other site security and environmental monitoring work also continues, as utilities confront a dangerous dam-climbing trend driven by social media.
BC Hydro has said measures have been put into place, amid concerns similar to those voiced by nuclear plant workers about precautions at industrial sites, to minimize the potential spread of the COVID-19 on site, such as closing the camp gym and theatre, eliminating self serve dining stations, as well as non-essential travel, tours, and meetings.
Some workers, however, have raised worries about the tight working conditions on site, noting field safety incidents that highlight risks in the sector.
The province announced Monday 48 new cases in B.C., including one more in the Northern Health region, bringing the region's total to five, while Saskatchewan's numbers show how the crisis has reshaped that province. Their precise whereabouts are not being reported by B.C. public health officials.
Manitoba Clean Electricity Investment will upgrade hydroelectric turbines, expand a 230 kV transmission network, and deliver reliable, affordable low-carbon power, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and strengthening grid reliability across Portage la Prairie and Winnipeg River.
Key Points
Joint federal-provincial funding to upgrade hydro turbines and build a 230 kV grid, boosting reliable, low-carbon power.
✅ $314M for new turbines at Pointe du Bois (+52 MW capacity)
✅ $161.6M for 230 kV transmission in Portage la Prairie
✅ Cuts Brandon Generating Station emissions by ~37%
The governments of Canada and Manitoba have announced a joint investment of $475.6 million to strengthen Manitoba’s clean electricity grid that can support neighboring provinces with clean power and ensure continued supply of affordable and reliable low-carbon energy.
This federal-provincial investment provides $314 million for eight new hydroelectric turbines at the 75 MW Pointe du Bois Generating Station on the Winnipeg River, as well as $161.6 million to build a new 230 kV transmission network in the Portage la Prairie area, bolstering power sales to SaskPower and regional reliability.
The $314 million joint investment in the Pointe du Bois Renewable Energy Project includes $114.1 million from the Government of Canada and nearly $200 million from the Government of Manitoba. The joint investment will enable Manitoba Hydro to replace eight generating units that are at the end of their lifecycle, amid looming new generation needs for the province. The new, more efficient units will increase the capacity of the Pointe du Bois generating station by 52 MW.
The $161.6 million joint investment in the Portage Area Capacity Enhancement project includes $70.9 million from the Government of Canada and $90.6 million from the Government of Manitoba. The joint investment will support the construction of a new transmission line to enhance reliability for customers across southwest Manitoba and help Manitoba Hydro meet increasing demand, with projections that demand could double over the next two decades. By decreasing Manitoba’s reliance on its last grid-connected fossil-fuel generating station, this investment will reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the Brandon Generating Station by about 37%.
The federal government’s total contribution of $184.9 million is provided through the Green Infrastructure Stream of the Investing in Canada Plan, alongside efforts to improve interprovincial grid integration such as NB Power agreements with Hydro-Quebec that strengthen regional reliability. This federal funding is conditional on meeting Indigenous consultation requirements, as well as environmental assessment obligations. Including today’s announcement, the Green Infrastructure Stream has supported 38 infrastructure projects in Manitoba, for a total federal contribution of more than $766.8 million and a total provincial contribution of over $658.4 million.
“A key part of our economic plan is making Canada a clean electricity superpower. Today’s announcement in Manitoba will deliver clean, reliable, and affordable electricity to people and businesses across the province—and we will continue working to expand our clean electricity grid and create great careers for people from coast to coast to coast,” said Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.
The federal government will continue to invest in making Canada a clean electricity superpower, supporting provincial initiatives like Hydro-Quebec's fossil-free strategy that complement these investments to ensure Canadians from coast to coast to coast have the affordable and reliable clean electricity they need today and for generations to come.
“Manitoba Hydro is extremely pleased to be receiving this federal funding through the Green Infrastructure Stream of the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program. The investments we are making in both these critical infrastructure projects will help provide Manitobans with energy for life and power our province’s economic growth with clean, reliable, renewable hydroelectricity. These projects build on our legacy of investments in renewable energy over the past 100 years, as we work towards a lower carbon future for all Manitobans,” said Jay Grewal, president and chief executive officer of Manitoba Hydro.
About 97% of Manitoba’s electricity is generated from clean hydro, with most of the remaining 3% coming from wind generation. Manitoba’s abundant clean electricity has resulted in Manitobans paying 9.455 ¢/kWh — the second-lowest electricity rate in Canada, though limits on serving new energy-intensive customers have been flagged recently.
Spain 2050 Renewable Energy Plan drives decarbonisation with wind and solar, energy efficiency, fossil fuel bans, and Paris Agreement targets, enabling net-zero power, emissions cuts, and just transition measures for workers and coal regions.
Key Points
A roadmap to 100 percent renewable power by 2050, deep emissions cuts, and a just transition aligned with Paris goals.
✅ Adds 3,000 MW of wind and solar each year through 2030
✅ Bans new fossil fuel drilling, hydrocarbon extraction, and fracking
✅ Targets 35% energy efficiency gains and 35% green power by 2030
Spain has launched an ambitious plan to switch its electricity system entirely to renewable sources, similar to California's 100% clean electricity mandate, by 2050 and completely decarbonise its economy soon after.
By mid-century, as EU electricity demand projections suggest increases, greenhouse gas emissions would be slashed by 90% from 1990 levels under Spain’s draft climate change and energy transition law.
To do this, the country’s social democratic government is committing to installing at least 3,000MW of wind and solar power capacity every year in the next 10 years ahead.
New licences for fossil fuel drills, hydrocarbon exploitation and fracking wells, will be banned, and a fifth of the state budget will be reserved for measures that can mitigate climate change. This money will ratchet upwards from 2025.
Christiana Figueres, a former executive secretary of the UN’s framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC), hailed the draft Spanish law as “an excellent example of the Paris agreement”. She added: “It sets a long-term goal, provides incentives on scaling up emissions technologies and cares about a good transition for the workforce.”
Under the plan, “just transition” contracts will be drawn up, similar to the £220m package announced in October, that will shut most Spanish coalmines in return for a suite of early retirement schemes, re-skilling in clean energy jobs, and environmental restoration. These deals will be partly financed by auction returns from the sale of emissions rights.
The government has already scrapped a controversial “sun tax” that halted Spain’s booming renewables sector earlier this decade, even as IEA analysis finds solar the cheapest electricity worldwide, and the new law will also mandate a 35% electricity share for green energy by 2030.
James Watson, chief executive of the SolarPower Europe trade association, said the law was “a wake-up call to the rest of the world” amid debate on the global energy transition today.
Energy efficiency will also be improved by 35% within 11 years, and government and public sector authorities will be able to lease only buildings that have almost zero energy consumption.
Laurence Tubiana, chief executive of the European Climate Foundation, and former French climate envoy who helped draft the Paris accord, described the agreement as groundbreaking and inspirational. “By planning on going carbon neutral, Spain shows that the battle against climate change is deadly serious, that they are ready to step up and plan to reap the rewards of decarbonisation,” she said.
However, the government’s hold on power is fragile. With just a quarter of parliamentary seats it will depend on the more leftwing Podemos and liberal Ciudadanos parties to pass the climate plan.
No dates were included in the legislation for phaseouts of coal or nuclear energy, and, echoing UK net zero policy shifts, a ban on new cars with petrol or diesel engines was delayed until 2040.
ITER Nuclear Fusion advances tokamak magnetic confinement, heating deuterium-tritium plasma with superconducting magnets, targeting net energy gain, tritium breeding, and steam-turbine power, while complementing laser inertial confinement milestones for grid-scale electricity and 2025 startup goals.
Key Points
ITER Nuclear Fusion is a tokamak project confining D-T plasma with magnets to achieve net energy gain and clean power.
✅ Tokamak magnetic confinement with high-temp superconducting coils
✅ Deuterium-tritium fuel cycle with on-site tritium breeding
✅ Targets net energy gain and grid-scale, low-carbon electricity
It sounds like the stuff of dreams: a virtually limitless source of energy that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. That’s the promise of nuclear fusion, often described as the holy grail of clean energy by proponents, which for decades has been nothing more than a fantasy due to insurmountable technical challenges. But things are heating up in what has turned into a race to create what amounts to an artificial sun here on Earth, one that can provide power for our kettles, cars and light bulbs.
Today’s nuclear power plants create electricity through nuclear fission, in which atoms are split, with next-gen nuclear power exploring smaller, cheaper, safer designs that remain distinct from fusion. Nuclear fusion however, involves combining atomic nuclei to release energy. It’s the same reaction that’s taking place at the Sun’s core. But overcoming the natural repulsion between atomic nuclei and maintaining the right conditions for fusion to occur isn’t straightforward. And doing so in a way that produces more energy than the reaction consumes has been beyond the grasp of the finest minds in physics for decades.
But perhaps not for much longer. Some major technical challenges have been overcome in the past few years and governments around the world have been pouring money into fusion power research as part of a broader green industrial revolution under way in several regions. There are also over 20 private ventures in the UK, US, Europe, China and Australia vying to be the first to make fusion energy production a reality.
“People are saying, ‘If it really is the ultimate solution, let’s find out whether it works or not,’” says Dr Tim Luce, head of science and operation at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), being built in southeast France. ITER is the biggest throw of the fusion dice yet.
Its $22bn (£15.9bn) build cost is being met by the governments of two-thirds of the world’s population, including the EU, the US, China and Russia, at a time when Europe is losing nuclear power and needs energy, and when it’s fired up in 2025 it’ll be the world’s largest fusion reactor. If it works, ITER will transform fusion power from being the stuff of dreams into a viable energy source.
Constructing a nuclear fusion reactor ITER will be a tokamak reactor – thought to be the best hope for fusion power. Inside a tokamak, a gas, often a hydrogen isotope called deuterium, is subjected to intense heat and pressure, forcing electrons out of the atoms. This creates a plasma – a superheated, ionised gas – that has to be contained by intense magnetic fields.
The containment is vital, as no material on Earth could withstand the intense heat (100,000,000°C and above) that the plasma has to reach so that fusion can begin. It’s close to 10 times the heat at the Sun’s core, and temperatures like that are needed in a tokamak because the gravitational pressure within the Sun can’t be recreated.
When atomic nuclei do start to fuse, vast amounts of energy are released. While the experimental reactors currently in operation release that energy as heat, in a fusion reactor power plant, the heat would be used to produce steam that would drive turbines to generate electricity, even as some envision nuclear beyond electricity for industrial heat and fuels.
Tokamaks aren’t the only fusion reactors being tried. Another type of reactor uses lasers to heat and compress a hydrogen fuel to initiate fusion. In August 2021, one such device at the National Ignition Facility, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, generated 1.35 megajoules of energy. This record-breaking figure brings fusion power a step closer to net energy gain, but most hopes are still pinned on tokamak reactors rather than lasers.
In June 2021, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor maintained a plasma for 101 seconds at 120,000,000°C. Before that, the record was 20 seconds. Ultimately, a fusion reactor would need to sustain the plasma indefinitely – or at least for eight-hour ‘pulses’ during periods of peak electricity demand.
A real game-changer for tokamaks has been the magnets used to produce the magnetic field. “We know how to make magnets that generate a very high magnetic field from copper or other kinds of metal, but you would pay a fortune for the electricity. It wouldn’t be a net energy gain from the plant,” says Luce.
One route for nuclear fusion is to use atoms of deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen. They fuse under incredible heat and pressure, and the resulting products release energy as heat
The solution is to use high-temperature, superconducting magnets made from superconducting wire, or ‘tape’, that has no electrical resistance. These magnets can create intense magnetic fields and don’t lose energy as heat.
“High temperature superconductivity has been known about for 35 years. But the manufacturing capability to make tape in the lengths that would be required to make a reasonable fusion coil has just recently been developed,” says Luce. One of ITER’s magnets, the central solenoid, will produce a field of 13 tesla – 280,000 times Earth’s magnetic field.
The inner walls of ITER’s vacuum vessel, where the fusion will occur, will be lined with beryllium, a metal that won’t contaminate the plasma much if they touch. At the bottom is the divertor that will keep the temperature inside the reactor under control.
“The heat load on the divertor can be as large as in a rocket nozzle,” says Luce. “Rocket nozzles work because you can get into orbit within minutes and in space it’s really cold.” In a fusion reactor, a divertor would need to withstand this heat indefinitely and at ITER they’ll be testing one made out of tungsten.
Meanwhile, in the US, the National Spherical Torus Experiment – Upgrade (NSTX-U) fusion reactor will be fired up in the autumn of 2022, while efforts in advanced fission such as a mini-reactor design are also progressing. One of its priorities will be to see whether lining the reactor with lithium helps to keep the plasma stable.
Choosing a fuel Instead of just using deuterium as the fusion fuel, ITER will use deuterium mixed with tritium, another hydrogen isotope. The deuterium-tritium blend offers the best chance of getting significantly more power out than is put in. Proponents of fusion power say one reason the technology is safe is that the fuel needs to be constantly fed into the reactor to keep fusion happening, making a runaway reaction impossible.
Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, so there’s a virtually limitless supply of it. But only 20kg of tritium are thought to exist worldwide, so fusion power plants will have to produce it (ITER will develop technology to ‘breed’ tritium). While some radioactive waste will be produced in a fusion plant, it’ll have a lifetime of around 100 years, rather than the thousands of years from fission.
At the time of writing in September, researchers at the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion reactor in Oxfordshire were due to start their deuterium-tritium fusion reactions. “JET will help ITER prepare a choice of machine parameters to optimise the fusion power,” says Dr Joelle Mailloux, one of the scientific programme leaders at JET. These parameters will include finding the best combination of deuterium and tritium, and establishing how the current is increased in the magnets before fusion starts.
The groundwork laid down at JET should accelerate ITER’s efforts to accomplish net energy gain. ITER will produce ‘first plasma’ in December 2025 and be cranked up to full power over the following decade. Its plasma temperature will reach 150,000,000°C and its target is to produce 500 megawatts of fusion power for every 50 megawatts of input heating power.
“If ITER is successful, it’ll eliminate most, if not all, doubts about the science and liberate money for technology development,” says Luce. That technology development will be demonstration fusion power plants that actually produce electricity, where advanced reactors can build on decades of expertise. “ITER is opening the door and saying, yeah, this works – the science is there.”
