the assembly of the interfusion reactor
began in the south of france last week
in what's been called the biggest
science project in human history
it's hoped that the reactor will be able
to produce clean energy using the same
process that fuels the sun
now eater or the international
thermonuclear experimental reactor is an
international project that hopes to
create
clean energy from hydrogen fusion the
same process that occurs
naturally in the heart of the sun fusion
will be obtained
through a mixture of two hydrogen
isotopes heated to a temperature
of around 150 million degrees
a long sought-after alternative to
fossil fuels such as
coal and gas hydrogen fusion generates
no
long-term waste while the fuels needed
to create fusion are found in
seawater and lithium and so readily
available
eater so where are we headed with this
new kind of energy and
what kind of a role does south korea
play in all this
it's a topic of our news in depth
tonight with chung jung
director general of eater korea live in
the studio with us
dr zhang thank you so much for joining
us tonight oh thank you very much for a
kind introduction
and as introduced i'm director general
of
a korean domestic agency for ita project
or i think i need to explain first of
all
what the domestic agency means domestic
agency
is a domestic organization for taking
all responsibility for
uh italy-related matters so uh as you
know there are seven
uh uh ital ita members so there are
seven
domestic agencies in the world all right
so eter is an international nuclear
fusion research and engineering mega
science project it was formed in 2007.
where was the platform of nuclear fusion
in south korea back in 2007 i mean what
qualified south korea to
to get involved in this ether project
yeah
in fact you know national fusion
research institute so-called
nfri is was the platform
uh playing key role together with the
korean government of course
for joining the ita project the nfr is
unique national research institution
in korea for future r d
and it is italian science town in dejan
and there are almost 400 steps
in nfri as far as
career admission to the enterprise the
concern
korea has submitted a letter of intent
for joining the ita project in 2003
and the four members at the time
european union
japan russian federation and the united
states
came to korea to investigate whether
korea has enough
scientific and technical capabilities
for as an eater member at that time nfl
was constructing a token mark
as a machine so called k-star i think
you already have
help for that career super conducting
token advanced research so they visited
of course case the construction site and
related
industries such as hyundai heavy
industries
where manufacturing of k-star component
are was taking place
and they were fully satisfied and
convinced
by korean capabilities not only
by the k-star construction but
also through industrial manufacturing
capabilities
so and all members was unanimously
admitted
by for ita members
right so the idea for an international
joint experiment involving the signs of
nuclear fusion was first launched i
believe in 1988.
um can you tell us a little bit about
how things have realized
from the initial idea to the global
project that it has become today
yeah you may aware that there was a
fantastic declaration
in 1985 uh between ronald reagan
former president of the united states
and gorbachev
former president of former soviet union
for peaceful uses of fusion energy for
future mankind
and three years later from this
declaration
in 1988 the ita project was launched as
you mentioned
right uh you now you know now
there was a memorable really signing
ceremony of the eta joint
implementation agreement so called ether
jia
at lga you know there is a leg yeah
located in paris in france
in november 2006 after really long
long negotiation phase isa
is an international agreement with
the which should meet all the written
commitments
by its members and all the ita members
are now
respecting fully this jia
now so what we understand is that this
ego project is now a globe
spanning project collaboration of 35
countries and seven members
how is the involvement of these
countries 35 countries
and seven member states how are they
different yeah
so i should mention first you know what
i eat full civil members
uh there are china european union
india japan korea russian federation
and the united states of america
well i i now i say that
among member countries for example you
could recognize that one of the
member countries is european union but
as you know in fact the eu has
28 members but for the interpreter point
of view
european union is represented by
so-called europe
which is a nuclear community of european
union switzerland
as you know is not member of europe uh
eu
but the member of europe only so
in total there are 29 members at in the
eurotome
as i said eu is represented by
so-called european so if
we add uh six members existing members
in total there will be 35. so i can say
that seven members with 35 countries
so i do hope you clearly understand now
so def so
apparently obviously the seven member
states represented the 35 countries
exactly now south korea plays rather a
key role in this whole project
by providing four of the nine sectors of
this vacuum
vessel which is at the core of all this
this stainless steel chamber
um once all nine sectors are assembled
completed tokemak
what kind of work does this entail for
the scientists and the organization
itself
right or in some sense i agree that
career
you know plays a key role but i need to
come back
to the negotiation phase for more
explanation
i mean at that time all the members try
to choose
components by their own national
strategy
during the negotiation phase and we have
had also our own strategy as well
for absorbing technologies this is based
on
prioritized technology that we want to
achieve from the heat organization
this is quite absolutely normal
one of the components that we have
insisted was vacuum vessel manufacturing
during the negotiation fest phase
and it was finally done we are very
happy
now i can firmly say that the ether
project was
very lucky why
is because if korea did not choose such
you know
pecking vessel manufacturing the product
would be
further delayed it's so difficult to
manufacture
the vacuum vessel almost impossible
as mentioned the director general of the
heat organization
during the year vaping basil sector
completion ceremony
at the handy heavy industries in april
this year
so but we finally succeeded to
manufacture
it by our passion endless endeavor
necessary rnds and
speedway with palpati as you know
culture that we always saying that way
but there is very strict
respect of quality this is very very
important because
we are engaging in our seven members so
we should respect
strictly all the quality necessary
in technical specification point of view
in this regard i can say that career
plays really
rather key roles as you mentioned but it
is a collective
game okay not just one one country
so all the members should meet their own
duties and responsibilities this is very
very important so i can say that they
are
it members are playing key roles by
their own manner
and you mentioned the about the it
organization
work assembly and installation of all
components of
tokamak machine are responsible of each
organization
okay there is of course a predominant
importance for that they should you know
properly do
all this work on time on cost
and more importantly very successfully
otherwise the machine will not be
operated right so
this is the role of each organization
now
so all members need to deliver quality
with speed now also called an artificial
sun dr john this project is expected to
solve humankind's
energy problems how do you see the
timeline of countries uh moving away
from the current sources
of energy to this new nuclear fusion
energy
so really good question the ether
project is performing
through an international collaboration
to demonstrate the feasibility
of fusion energy into electricity
we are of course expecting in the future
energy paradigm shift
from existing energy to nuclear fusion
for future
human being for that
i will very briefly describe the status
of some eater members
on demo plant demo demo means
that you really produce electricity and
put it to the electrical grid this is
a meaning of demo plant eu is planning
to produce electricity
in the year of 2050s okay
and china has more or less the same
similar uh
milestone as far as career concern
is not yet fully approved by the
government
but we are planning to finish our final
design of demo
by uh by 2035
and start to construct construct in
201738
and finish the construction in 2048
so 10 years duration and then electric
to the grid 250 this is our tentative
milestone it seems still very far
but not at all we should rush and
prepare especially in strengthening
manpower
for the further surface of a demo plant
there are some people asking me whether
they can use the electricity from fusion
energy in their life in our lifetime
yeah i say yes but you know some of them
certainly should live long
well definitely now um how does this
affect the current south korean export
market of nuclear power plants because
south korea is a power
house in that does ether make this
industry obsolete
no absolutely not i can say that there
is no
impact at all on nuclear power plant
export because of fusion energy
development
the ether does not make these industries
obsolete
on the contrary we should encourage them
to develop
the nuclear efficient market so that the
industries can sustain their
manufactured
manufacturing capabilities it is really
important for
fusion as well for the future and such
maintained manufacturing capabilities
can have a broad market in the future
so i think they need korean industries
to build
their own future reactors in china
united states or europe or
even japan they need our technology as
well
so this belief is from my experience of
enterprise
execution now how does the recognition
of this project fake the
affect the field of nuclear physics here
in south korea for the industry
as well as the business as well as
future students in this field
right yeah once again food and energy
development will be an
immense chance for korean industries as
i said
before uh once we succeed the
commercialization of nuclear fusion of
power energy korean industries will have
huge chances
to penetrate international future market
all over the world this is my firm
belief as i said before
as far as you know future student
concern
i'd like to limit to speak a little bit
the narrow way
because it's true to why the nfl nfri
national future research institute needs
to recruit more
scientists and engineers for future
preparation
both for it operation and for demo plant
construction as well firstly uh
it operation we need to prepare
scientists
or engineers who can operate an eater
machine
this is very important because very soon
from 2014
four years later the ether machine will
be operated
the k-star is one of the unique machine
in the world
to train scientists and engineers to
operate the itunes machine
so this is really good chance good
opportunity for korea
sending more people to italianation we
need to operate
this is our machine i mean seven members
machine
secondary demo plant design as i said
before that
we have we will finish our demo plant
designed by
2035 for that we need
more of course expert to properly work
on it
in summary i think training manpower is
one of the key issues that we have to
solve together and by adding adopting
this policy direction there will be more
chances
to future students in the field
so definitely we encourage more students
to get into the field of eater
as we make global efforts towards this
nuclear fusion energy all right changing
director general of ita korea many
thanks for sharing your insights with us
this evening we appreciate it oh thank
you very much
for uh for giving me a chance to explain
the ether project
and the future fusion and development
planning career
to the general public thank you thank
you very much
