A fusion power plant under construction in the south of France. Provided by ITER
– –
The Board of Directors of the International Fusion Test Reactor (ITER) has unanimously appointed Pietro Baravaski as successor to former ITER Secretary General Bernard Vigo, who passed away last May, at a board meeting held in Paris, France, since 14 to 15.
Baravasski (56), of Italian descent, the new secretary general, is a scientist who has worked hard to create a life-long source of nuclear fusion energy. After studying electrical engineering at university, he joined the ITER joint core team from 1992 and until 2006 was head of the design integration department of the ITER international team. Since 2015 he has been appointed interim director of ‘F4E’, an ITER organization of the European Union.
Following the death of former Secretary General Bernard Vigo, who has led ITER since 2015, due to illness in May, ITER Deputy Secretary General Tada Aisuke served as interim secretary general. New Secretary General Baravaski will take up the role of ITER Secretary General in October.
Nuclear fusion is a technology that embodies the way the sun produces energy on earth. In contrast to nuclear power generation which uses nuclear fission, it generates energy by carrying out nuclear fusion at ultra-high temperatures such as the sun. Theoretically, it is also called “dream energy” because it can produce 10,000 tons (tons) of energy from a raw material the size of a pineapple.
The ITER project, which he started designing in 1988, includes 6 countries including Korea, the United States, China, Japan, Russia, India and 28 European countries as members. Since September of this year, three young Korean researchers have also been sent to the engineering and science and driving sectors of ITER.
In 2007, the European Union (EU) spearheaded the construction of ITER, a 200 MW (megawatt) fusion nuclear power plant in Tadarache, southern France, with the aim of completing it by 2025 and making it operational by 2040. .
