FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

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India Is Hosting a Major IAEA International Conference on Fusion Energy

Oct. 24, 2018 (EIRNS)—The 27th International Atomic Energy Agency’s Fusion Energy Conference, with more than 1,000 people from 40 nations participating, is taking place in Gandhinagar, India, on Oct. 22-27. Fusion “is clearly an essential option for energy safety,” said Rajagopala Chidambram, former chair of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, on the first day of the five-day conference. “I don’t see another option on the horizon,” he said. India began its fusion research in the early 1970s and is a partner in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) tokamak project.

Nawal Prinja, from India’s nuclear program, said: “Fusion is our future. Fusion technology is already working; what’s missing is the extraction of energy from fusion reactions” the ITER Newsline reports. Half-joking, Prinja described fusion energy as “a physicist’s delight but a huge headache for the engineer.”

ITER Newsline says scientists and engineers “will present and discuss the key physics and technology issues of fusion research ... for the benefit of all mankind.”