The giant magnet prior to the unveiling ceremony at General Atomics. (Photo by JW August/Times of San Diego)
Sitting inside a building in a Poway industrial park is the result of nearly 20 years of work by General Atomics — the last piece of a massive magnet bound for France, where it will be a central component of an experimental nuclear fusion reactor.
It is one piece in the challenging task of creating a clean, nearly limitless energy source based on the same process that powers the Sun. The 270,000-pound magnet is heading to the port of Galveston, Texas, and then onto France, eventually arriving at the international research project called ITER, about 50 miles from the seaport of Marseille.
There was a celebration Thursday in Poway, where employees of San Diego-based General Atomics, as well as dignitaries and the media, gathered for what company CEO Neal Blue called “a momentous achievement.”
Rep. Scott Peters said that “when it’s completed, ITER will demonstrate the awe-inspiring potential that the power will have and was built right here by you, an extraordinary team of scientists, engineers and technicians.”
He congratulated the General Atomics team, as did San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, who said, “This is big deal stuff. But I would tell you, as the mayor of this city, what I particularly appreciate about GA is that this company, for 70 years now, has been providing high-quality, good-paying jobs for San Diegans. San Diegans like my dad, who retired from GA.”
John Smith, director of engineering at the company, led development of the magnets. He said ITER is one of the most ambitious science projects in history, equating it with the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb or the moon landing in 1969.
Ananta Krisharian, a senior vice president, said the undertaking will demonstrate “a viable path to fusion energy in the 2030s.”
More than $10 billion of private venture investment, Krisharian said, has been made to “create a network of startup companies that are all working on developing the designs for commercial fusion power plants.”
The hoped-for payoff, he said, is going to be immense.
“Fusion offers the promise of virtually limitless, clean, safe, energy that is always available,” he added. “This is the kind of energy that’s going to power our cities in the future.”
The massive magnet is the last of seven similar cylindrical modules designed and built by General Atomics. This last module will be used as a spare; the other six will eventually be stacked, one on top of the other, creating a magnet five stories high and weighing 1,000 tons. The stack is called the Central Solenoid and will sit in the center of the ITER facility.
Several speakers referred to it as the “beating heart” of the 445-acre ITER project, which is expected to begin operation in 2034 .
The magnets will generate an extremely high field for short durations to provide a protective envelope during the fusion process, in which hydrogen atoms combine to form helium, converting matter to energy in the process. It’s what powers the sun and stars.
General Atomics scientists say the magnets are so powerful they could lift an aircraft carrier out of the water.
Thirty-five nations are contributing their expertise and components to ITER, including China and Russia. While the U.S. only pays about 10% of the costs of the project, it is entitled to full access to the project’s data.
Peters noted that California is already the fourth largest economy in the world and predicted “this technology has the potential to become a $40 trillion worldwide industry, further strengthening California as an economic force.”
“So what are the next steps?” said Smith. “We need to take the lessons we learned in this project and apply them to the future commercial enterprise, the commercial fusion ecosystem that’s right around the corner from us.”