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University of California, San Diego, U.S.A.
Introduction.
The year 1998 was the culmination of the six-year Engineering Design Activities (EDA) of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Project. The EDA results in design and validating technology R&D, plus the associated effort in voluntary physics research, is a significant achievement and major milestone in the history of magnetic fusion energy development. Consequently, the ITER EDA was a major theme at this Conference, contributing almost 40 papers.
Another major theme at the Conference was the significant progress towards the ability to demonstrate steady-state operation with all the associated implications on technology. Of course, ITER has made major contributions to this basic theme as well.
A key issue for the development of fusion energy is how to provide sources of high energy neutrons for materials and component testing, as well as a test of the physics required for producing substantial amounts of fusion power at high-energy gain. Several options were presented at the Conference, recognizing again that this is also to some degree part of the ITER EDA Mission. Looking in the longer term, papers were presented on various embodiments of power plants with several innovative design concepts. Continued progress in fusion nuclear technology and materials was also reported in several papers.
With these themes in mind, this summary is presented with the following sections:
In total, about 90 ITER EDA and technology papers were presented,
accounting for about 25% of the papers at the Conference.
IAEA 2001
