Index
The goal of the European Fusion Research Programme is the joint creation of a safe, environmentally-sound prototype reactor. Progress has been made in this effort. The Joint European Torus (JET) is currently the major European experiment. The design of the next step towards the prototype reactor, called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) , is presently undertaken in the frame of the quadripartite international collaboration involving Europe, the United States, Japan and the Russian Federation. Both JET and ITER are based on the tokamak configuration which is the most advanced fusion plasma confinement concept. Other concepts, akin to the tokamak, the stellarator and the reversed-field pinch (RFP), are also under study in the European programme. These alternative concepts have the potential for some advantages but further research is required to establish their feasibility for fusion power production.
(Picture of the European Fusion Institutions and Facilities)
The aim of the Swedish Research Unit (RU) is to take part in the EURATOM fusion research programme for the development of thermonuclear fusion based on magnetic confinement for power production. The activities of the Swedish RU are organised into a General Programme and a Technology Programme. The work is distributed among several Universities: the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Chalmers University of Technology (CTH), Uppsala University (UU) and Lund University (LU) as well as at the Studsvik AB Research Centre.