International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor [ITER] - Fusion (France)

       No list of Megaprojects would be complete without including the largest-ever science project. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (or, ITER) is a collaboration between China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States that is under construction in Southern France where researchers will attempt to see if they can, essentially, recreate the power of the Sun and harness it in a steel bottle. Gas will be heated to over 150 million degrees in a massive steel frame using giant magnets that will force some atoms together. In this experimental reactor, the hope is to produce 10 times more energy than what is used to initiate the reaction, or the equivalent of 500 megawatts of power for 1,000 seconds. Although electricity won’t be generated at the ITER facility, a fusion power plant would use the heat generated to drive turbines and produce power. Unlike nuclear fission, which are what all nuclear power plants are today, fusion reactors should be completely safe, with no risk of a producing a runaway chain reaction and no dangerous long-living radioactive waste. The fact that nations who are competing in nearly every area of geopolitics and economics are coming together to collaborate on a $50 billion project is a sign that the science is incredibly promising and the potential benefits to humanity are profoundly game-changing. That’s why countries that represent half of the world’s population and account for 2/3ds of the global economy are participating: because solving fusion would mean prosperity for all, the closest thing to limitless energy we can fathom. This month, after the completion of the ground support structure which took four years to finish, the second phase of construction began: the walls of the seven-story building where the experiment will take place. But we’re still several years away from turning the thing on. The complex will make its first attempt to produce plasma in a fusion reaction in 2020, with regular operations beginning in 2027, 11 years behind schedule and over 40 years after the program was first initiated in 1985. But no matter how long, or how many tries it takes to get it right, the prospect, the hope of living in a world powered by this type of energy that we wouldn’t need to fight over, or pump out of the ground, that we wouldn’t need to burn, that wouldn’t harm our precious planet, that’s probably one of the most optimistic, hopeful ideas I’ve ever heard, and it’s definitely one worth waiting for.