EISS - CADARACHE

Background

The objective of the ITER machine is to demonstrate the scientific feasibility of fusion, with extended burn and marginally controlled ignition for a duration sufficient to achieve stationary conditions on all time-scales characteristics of plasma processes and plasma-wall interactions. To do so the installation will produce 500 MW of fusion power during pulses of at least 400 seconds. The facility will also demonstrate key fusion technologies.

The ITER Engineering Design Activities (EDA) were carried out between July 1992 and July 2001 under the framework of the ITER Agreement and Protocol signed by representatives of the four Parties, the European Atomic Energy Community, Japan, the Russian Federation and the United States of America (the USA withdrew in 1999). During the EDA, the ITER Joint Central Team (JCT) elaborated a reference design, called hereafter "generic design", including in particular a minimum set of requirements to be satisfied by any proposed site and additional assumptions.

Canada, the European Atomic Energy Community, Japan and the Russian Federation have started negotiations in order to select a site for the construction of ITER and to establish an ITER Legal Entity. In Europe, on 16 November 2000, the Research Council of Ministers asked the European Commission "to conduct negotiations on the establishment of an international framework allowing the ITER EDA Parties and qualified third countries to prepare jointly for the future establishment of an ITER Legal Entity for ITER construction

At the European Consultative Committee on Fusion (CCE-FU) meeting on 11 July 2000, the French Delegation announced that "CEA was proposing the site of Cadarache as a possible site for ITER construction", calling on active contributions from the EURATOM-Fusion Associations and on a strong involvement of European industry in the preparation of the proposal. The CCE-FU invited the EFDA Steering Committee to carry out swiftly - in close interaction with CEA and in consultation with the ITER JCT - an in-depth examination of the CEA proposal.A European ITER Site Technical Study group (EISS group) has been established to examine ITER sites in Europe.

For the Cadarache site, the EISS group was asked to:

• establish the compliance of the site with the ITER technical site requirements
• identify key elements for the licensing procedure
• examine site specific aspects of the ITER construction and operation costs
• evaluate the social and infrastructure impacts of the project