There has been a lot of attention paid to solving the global housing and affordability crisis. The component manufacturing and modular housing industries have been innovating for over seven decades. Much of the innovation has been successfully commercialized as evident in the annual volume of housing starts worldwide. But innovation in construction extends well beyond housing.
As we look forward to 2026, I had the opportunity to tour ITER, one of the largest construction sites in Europe, on the path to delivering the largest fusion energy device ever built. ITER is an acronym for International Thermonuclear Experience Reactor but also means “the way” in Latin. [For all photos, See PDF or View in Full Issue.]
ITER is one of the most ambitious energy projects in the world. As they note on their website, 33 nations are collaborating to build the world’s largest Tokamak, a magnetic fusion device that has been designed to prove the feasibility of fusion energy as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy for mankind based on the same process that powers the Sun and stars.
Located in southern France, ITER’s fusion energy device will be used for fusion experiments and will not be a commercial fusion power plant. ITER is the unique culmination of over seven decades of international collaboration to harness the unlimited power of hydrogen fusion (“a Sun”) on earth. For more information on ITER, please visit www.iter.org.
In the hills of Haute-Provence, in the south of France, ITER is a massive integrated facility that includes 50 scientific and industrial buildings on 42 hectares! The scale of the ITER plant tour is mindboggling, several magnitudes greater than any “Feed the Beast Plant Tour.” (For reference, see my previous articles, including “Inspiration for Automation in 2025,” “Incremental CapEx ROI and Plant Tours,” “Inspiration to Feed The Beast! in 2024,” and “Time to Make Time for a Feed The Beast Plant Tour!”)
Shown on the previous page is a cut-away model of the ITER Tokamak Fusion Device. For the actual device, inside the Assembly Building, high-capacity overhead gantry cranes and supplemental cranes are used to assemble and stage components to be installed in the Tokamak final location (“the pit”).
Shown here is one “D”-shaped toroidal field magnet weighing 330 tons and measuring 9 m x 17 m being prepped for installation using a massive jig.
Inside the Tokamak Pit, the Toroidal Field System will consist of eighteen of the “D”-shaped toroidal field magnets. When completed, the donut-shaped magnetic field will create 41 gigajoules of magnetic energy with a maximum magnetic field of 11.8 Tesla. This is more than 10 times greater than the strength of electromagnets used to lift cars in junkyards.
Surrounding the completed Toroidal “donut” will be a six-ring-shaped Poloidal Field System. The largest coil has a diameter of 24 meters and is 400 tons.
These magnetic coils are so big that they are manufactured on site in their own massive building.
Shown next are two of the Poloidal Field Coils, including the largest 24 m coil, wrapped in protective coating, along with one of the “smaller” ring coils.
The entire fusion device is contained in a giant Cryostat vacuum vessel – the largest vacuum chamber in the world. There are four main cryostat stainless steel sections. When these massive 30 m diameter sections are assembled, they will provide a high vacuum containment system and ultra cold environment for the superconducting magnets.
Even though the site is dominated by steel and concrete, I still found some wood in the mix – including the use of wood for supports and shims!
The Cryostat base and lower cylinder have already been installed in the Tokamak pit. The upper cylinder and the top lid are stored under protective wrapping outside. Shown here is the top lid.
The entire fusion device is being constructed inside a heavily shielded (walls ~ 1 m thick) concrete chamber – the bio shield, which will be capped with a concrete lid.
In our industry, we have our own reference of what is considered a small or large project. Visiting a construction site like ITER though can remind of us what kind of scales are involved in construction projects around the world. This tour has been an eye-opener to the scope of projects that are possible in modern construction, thanks to 70 years of innovation.
Reach out to me when you’re ready to “Feed the Beast!” at your plant: https://limteksolutions.com/#solutions.