Will Iter produce radioactive waste?
Yes. The neutrons produced in fusion reactions will “activate” the materials used in the walls of Iter’s plasma chamber. But one of the project’s tasks will be to find the materials that best withstand this bombardment. This could result in waste materials that are safe to handle in a relatively modest timescale (50-100 years), compared with the much longer lived radioactive waste (many thousands of years) produced as a direct result of splitting atoms in fission reactions. It has been calculated that after 100 years of post-operation radioactive decay, Iter will be left with about 6,000 tonnes of waste. When packaged, this would be equivalent to a cube with about 10m edges. How soon will Iter be built? The 28 June meeting of the Iter partners agreed to site the reactor at Cadarache in southern France over Rokkasho in northern Japan. Further progress on technical issues is still required, and construction is expected to take at least a decade. How much will Iter cost? Iter construction
