The EFDA Technology programme

The European Fusion Programme has two main lines of development: the Next Step Programme , and the Long-Term Programme. Since the EFDA agreement came into force (January 1^st, 1999), these programmes have been under the responsibility of the EFDA Close Support Unit Garching as an integrated EFDA Technology Programme. The wide spectrum of activities in the EFDA Technology Programme is divided in five fields, plus a number of projects, studies and other activities.

The Next Step Programme aims to develop the technologies that will allow Europe and its international partners to build a "Next Step" machine, which would demonstrate the mastery of the physics involved in producing energy from fusion in an experiment that already incorporates some of the essential technologies for a fusion power plant. This "Next Step" has now taken the shape of the ITER-project, which will be constructed in Cadarache in the South of France, in a large international collaboration. ITER has to produce and sustain burning plasmas delivering substantial amounts of fusion energy, for an extended period of time. The work in this Programme aims at fully validating the ITER design, and at making manufacturing methods better and more cost-effective.

In the Long-Term Programme, EFDA aims at developing the nuclear components and the low-activation materials needed to build a demonstration reactor (the step after ITER), allowing European industry, in the not too distant future, to supply a line of economically competitive commercial fusion power plants, safe and environmentally friendly. EFDA also explores the characteristics of such a demonstration reactor through the Power Plant Conceptual Study and evaluates its social and economic aspects via Socio-Economic Studies. In addition, the Long Term Programme addresses key issues for future commercial fusion power plants, such as tritium self-sufficiency and low-activation materials.

Since the inception of the ITER project, special care has been taken to allow Europe to gain sufficient know-how in all the critical areas of the project. The European Union finances this effort through the budget allocated to fusion within the 5^th and the 6^th Framework Programmes.