ITER’s Monopoly on Fusion Energy is Over

Single-structure research facilities need to be unique to justify budget increases and delays. With the private industry looming, how exceptional is ITER today?

ITER-reactor during construction

To understand the history of the universe, we need to get a perfect mirror the size of a house to space. To find the smallest fundamental particles, we need to accelerate particles to the speed of light. To harness the holy grail of energy, we need to position the point of the lowest temperature in the solar system mere meters away from the hottest. 

These experiments - namely the James Webb Telescope, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and the fusion reactor International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) - are the most advanced scientific research conducted in their respective fields. Their beauty lies in humanity's ability to investigate at the frontier of its knowledge and either expand it or be proven wrong. That is, if everything works as planned. But that’s hardly ever the case. 

ITER is a fusion research reactor with the goal to demonstrate that fusion energy can be harnessed in a power plant. A successful ITER project and in extension the commercialization of fusion energy promises nothing less than “abundant clean energy too cheap to meter.” It is widely regarded as the most ambitious scientific experiment and with a trillion dollar market in clean energy looming, as Bloomberg analyses, it seems like a worthy cause to spend billions on. But with increases in construction time and budget it’s time to openly discuss the true value of ITER. There might be more effective research strategies for fusion energy. 

While the total costs and the time until completion for facilities are factors, they are not always the most important as the following examples demonstrate.Originally scheduled for completion in 2005, the Large Hadron Collider's (LHC) inauguration was delayed until 2008 due to difficulties in manufacturing and installing thousands of superconducting magnets, each of which had to operate at near absolute zero degrees. A major setback occurred shortly after its first startup, when a faulty electrical connection caused a helium leak and significant damage, requiring extensive repairs and safety upgrades before the collider could be fully operational by 2010. The final costs exceeded the initial budget by a factor of nearly two.

Still, it was a low price for providing experimental validation of the Higgs Boson, a fundamental particle previously only predicted in theory. The LHC is still used to conduct experiments under conditions similar to those shortly after the Big Bang, enabling research including plasma states no longer found in the universe, dark matter, and anit-matter. For its construction, superconducting materials, diagnostics, and computational capabilities had to be advanced creating spill-over effects benefiting other R&D fields.

As described in Natalie Wolchover’s Pulitzer Prize winning article, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was plagued by messy management, miscalculations and impossible timelines. Originally planned for a 2007 launch, the project was delayed by 14 years, with the budget ballooning from $500 million to nearly $10 billion. One major issue was the complexity of designing and constructing the mirror with the size of a small house, which had to be lightweight, precisely engineered, and capable of folding to fit into the transporting rocket.

Technical setbacks were frequent, with components failing during testing or integration of the various components—each designed and built by different contractors—proving more difficult than anticipated, often revealing incompatibilities that required additional engineering.

The JWST was finally launched in December 2021 and initiated an outburst in support as the first high quality images of outer space spread on Earth. The JWST is a major scientific and engineering success and enables generations of astrophysicists in their work through achievements like the segmented mirror design, advanced sunshield deployment and cryogenic cooling, setting new standards for future space missions.

Despite facing major delays and budget overshoots of several times the initial sum, both projects were celebrated and are now regarded as parts of humanity's greatest achievements. At several points, there were public discussions about whether these projects should be canceled but they proved to be worth it. With at least four times its initial budget and a delay of at least a decade, it is all the more curious that a public debate around defining a red-line for ITER is missing. 

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A hole shaped like a red-line

In July, Elizabeth Gibney wrote an excellent article on the fusion research facility ITER and the delays and budget overshoots it’s facing. The large fusion research facility is notorious for delaying its milestones leading to escalating costs, now officially for the sixth time. The communication around its shortcomings is so opaque that most timelines depicting the construction process are now ending in a question mark. 

ITER timeline and budget, via Scientific American

In her article, Gibney depicts the current status of fusion research, introduces voices from research and industry and their positions, and balances showing the value of the produced research with its cost and speed.

One scientist quoted claims that ITER will be “extremely relevant” and “extremely important, no matter when it comes.” Which is wrong. If ITER were to be finished in a hundred years and subsequently at the cost of hundreds of billions, it simply can’t be worth it given the current accelerating pace of progress in fusion research.

The expressed sentiment would be  more reasonable for most other large scientific research projects. The Webb Telescope would most likely be equally important ten years later; the same applies for the discovery of the Higgs boson. The LHC and the James Webb Telescope are singular in their project scope, meaning they are so bold and uniquely geared to a scientific purpose that there were no comparable projects at the time. Also, there is no obvious financial advantage for competing scientists, companies, or nations to get the data first.

There is, however, another force giving ITER quite literally a run for its money: the private fusion industry. 

With the private fusion industry flourishing, the uniqueness of the ITER project as a whole is arguably threatened. Over fourty private startups are developing and building commercial fusion reactors, with the most ambitious promising to produce electricity by 2028. And exactly here is where the debate should start. Without a doubt, ITER laid the foundations for the current status of the fusion landscape and provided a plethora of technologies that are at the core of some of the most promising approaches.  

But if ITER were unique in scope and the only option to get to a commercial power plant, the delays probably wouldn’t be as much of a problem. As the technology matures, it seems increasingly likely that the tokamak concept ITER is based on isn’t even the most promising technology for a commercial power plant. 

By going all in on a single structure research facility, its idiosyncrasies must be obvious and the cost and timeline appropriate. ITER no longer clearly fits that criteria.

By trying to hide any issues and denying any dynamics that might change the total value of a finalized ITER project, the public opinion on fusion can only be hurt. Fusion already faces criticism of being too expensive, too late for tackling climate change or over-hyped. The issues and criticism should be openly addressed and thereby refuted as the American Astronomical Society did with a strong statement in 2011 when the House Appropriations Committee proposed to cancel the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). 

What ITER should do is clearly define its benefits and how they are still necessary to advance in fusion research. As a publicly funded facility, it also needs to show openly where the project falls short and what else should be done. 

To its credit, ITER already started sharing its findings, like experimental results, simulation codes and best practices after years of reticence. There seems to be a slight mindset shift away from being the only way toward a more dynamic and hopefully more effective portfolio approach to fusion research. And as long as a multitude of research is affordable that can be good enough for ITER’s construction to continue. 

A reasonable public debate should neither omit the tremendous body of R&D work ITER already produced and will continue doing so nor shy away from the questions if there are or when there will be more effective ways of funding fusion research. A public display of rigor and showcasing the true success would benefit the project and the industry. So if ITER is really ‘The Way,’ it should weather the scrutiny. Even if the ITER project would be discontinued,previous expenses shouldn’t be seen as wasted. This isn’t automatically true for future expenses though.