Despite the threat of budget cutbacks due to the poor global economy and the set back of a key Japanese supplier due to the earthquake, the international fusion project ITER is showing signs of progress. And while first fusion is not expected until 2020 (or perhaps a year later), the necessary steps to achieve that milestone have been taking place over the last half dozen months.

In fact, in the last few months work on ITER has transitioned from design to development. For example, AREVA Federal Services was awarded $13.2 million for the fabrication of five drain tanks for the ITER cooling water system. 

Work at and around the ITER site in southern France is also picking up.  At the heart of the facility is the three-building Tokamak Complex, one of which will house the reactor. This complex is being built in a seismic isolation pit with a concrete base and 493 seismic pads to shield the reactor. In recent months, excavation of the reactor’s site was completed and workers began to pour the building’s foundation and install the pads.

This month, work started on the installation of the pylons that will carry 400kV power lines to the facility. And the ITER Headquarters building, that will include offices for 500 people, meeting rooms, and a footbridge to the ITER control room, is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2012.

Even with all of this activity, the first experiment in the fusion reactor might be pushed back a year to 2020 due to consequences from last year’s earthquake in Japan. Facilities in Japan that were carrying out work on the conductor to be placed in the reactor’s central solenoid were damaged and some work was delayed.