The workshop addressed Spain’s participation in international fusion projects

Spain’s participation in IFMIF-DONES, which expects the construction of a particle accelerator capable of generating neutrons similar to those produced in a fusion reactor, was one of the topics addressed at the workshop ‘El experimento de energía de fusion, TJ-II, del CIEMAT’ (‘TJ-II, CIEMAT’s fusion energy experiment’), a technical meeting organised last March 2 by Instituto de la Ingeniería de España (Spanish Engineering Institute, IIE) and the National Fusion Laboratory in CIEMAT.

Besides analysing the fundamentals of nuclear fusion, the workshop addressed Spain’s participation in international initiatives related to fusion, among which a number of projects were highlighted, such as ITER (one of the most ambitious energy programs with 35 countries working together in the construction of the largest tokamak) and DONES, which will enable the development and validation of the materials that will be used in future fusion reactors.

Spain, through the Ministry of Science and Innovation, the regional Government of Andalucía, and in collaboration with Croatia, has put forward a proposal to build IFMIF-DONES, a key facility for the development of fusion as a source of energy in Escúzar (Granada). Its technical development takes place within the framework of a series of projects with national (DONES-PRIME project and ACTECA project) and international funding (Work Package Early Neutron Source of EUROfusion Consortium and the DONES Preparatory Phase project).

The technical workshop organised by IIE and CIEMAT concluded with an analysis of stellarator type experiments, going into detail on CIEMAT’s TJ-II fusion energy experiment.