Iter fusion demonstrator’s ‘first plasma’ target to be missed

Fusion project will still meet “real target” of achieving full fusion by 2035, director says

The international fusion-energy demonstration project Iter, which is building a prototype fusion reactor in southern France, will miss a key deadline as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, its director has said.

Already delayed multiple times and running billions of euros over its initial budget, Iter set a new target in 2016 to produce its first plasma—used to fuse atoms to produce energy in nuclear fusion—by 2025.