66th IAEA General Conference
Recently, India has contributed to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project.
Recently, the 66th meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been held in Vienna. During the meeting, the Chairman of the Commission said that India has supplied cryolines for the ITER project in France.
The AEA promotes the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the enforcement of safeguards. This would prevent the military use of nuclear energy.
ITER is located in France. It was launched in the year 1985.
Objectives:
- Prove the viability of nuclear fusion as a source of future energy and build the world’s largest tokamak through international cooperation of 35
- The tokamak is an experimental magnetic fusion device. It is designed to harness the energy generated by fusion.
- Within a tokamak, the energy generated through fusion is absorbed by the vessel walls as heat. Its fusion heat plants will use to produce steam and then electricity.
- The members of ITER are China, the European Union, India (joined in 2005), Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States.
- The ‘Plasma Research Institute’ (IPR), aided by the Department of Atomic Energy, is India’s partner agency in ITER.
- In addition to supplying cryolines, IPR has also supplied about 6 km of return lines for hot gases to ITER. They are manufactured in India only.
Nuclear fusion-
- It is a process in which two lighter nuclei combine to release a large amount of energy.
- Atoms of tritium and deuterium (isotopes of hydrogen) are used in fusion plants.
Nuclear fusion has the following advantages:
- abundant energy production,
- fuel never runs out,
- Fusion plants do not emit harmful gases like CO, etc.
Source- The Hindu
