Werner Burkart ? IAEA Deputy Director General 
How has the IAEA supported fusion research?
DDG Burkart: The vision of fusion for peaceful purposes has always been to recreate the energy of the Sun on Earth. The IAEA has supported this idea from its founding in 1957. Even during the Cold War, the IAEA was able to facilitate cooperation across the Iron Curtain and to provide a forum to exchange scientific research. Today, we continue to support research networks, training and education, also through the International Centre for Theoretical Physics and coordinated research projects. I am proud to say that the IAEA played a significant role in facilitating a remarkable achievement, the establishment of an international organization, ITER, whose aim is to develop fusion energy for peaceful uses. ITER is also the Latin word for ?journey? or ?way? to underscore the organization?s path-finding mission. It is important to stress that the first concrete has been poured at Cadarache, France, which marks the official start of the fusion reactor?s construction.
Why is ITER a focus of the Agency's support and what does ITER hope to achieve?
DDG Burkart: ITER is the first large-scale, international effort to use fusion energy to produce electricity. It will test the technologies needed to sustain a fusion reaction. This, of course, is a huge undertaking with enormous financial implications to be shared by its partners. It is our mandate to promote safe, secure and peaceful nuclear technologies, support Member States in their capacity building, and provide training and education for the experts working in the nuclear field.
Fusion research depends on exchange and dialogue. How does the IAEA support that communication?
DDG Burkart: As an important contribution to the field, the IAEA publishes ?Nuclear Fusion?, the leading monthly journal, covering all significant aspects of fusion research. This year, we celebrate its 50th anniversary. The Journal also recognises excellence by means of an annual prize awarded to the authors of papers judged to have made the greatest impact. The award is typically presented during the biennial Fusion Energy Conference, which is taking place this week in Daejeon, The Republic of Korea.
Let me say a few words about the IAEA?s Fusion Conference. It is the premier event in the field. It provides an unparalleled forum for the exchange of first-class research in plasma physics and fusion energy by bringing together leading scientists from around the world.
With more than 1, 200 participants, this year?s Conference is the largest Fusion Energy Conference ever organized by the IAEA. I am very happy to have witnessed how the Conference has grown in both its size and the standing it enjoys worldwide. The previous Conference in Geneva celebrated 50 years of fusion, and since then remarkable progress has been made, including the establishment of ITER.
After over fifty years of fusion research support, are you not a bit worried that fusion will always remain science fiction?
DDG Burkart: Fusion energy as the source of electricity in our daily lives may be decades away, but progress made in the last decade has been substantial. Similar to the Internet which also came out of military research, fusion has been tested for military purposes more than 50 years ago. Making fusion work for ?Atoms for Peace? is a much more noble cause. Finally, there are also other benefits of fusion research, for example in material sciences for high temperature resistant structures with many important nuclear and non-nuclear applications.
To conclude, I would say that for the world at large, fusion energy may seem like a distant dream but for the group of dedicated fusion scientists, each step?from exchanging research to the establishing ITER?brings the dream that much closer to reality. In other words, doesn?t every significant step forward in the development of humankind start with a dream?
-- DDG Burkart was interviewed on 6 October 2010 by Sasa Gorisek, IAEA Nuclear Applications, and, Peter Kaiser, IAEA Public Information
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