The ITER Council has approved changes to the ITER design proposed by the ITER Organization and a slippage to the schedule of 2 years. Completion of construction is now targeted for 2018. The design changes and schedule slippage, along with inflationary costs of some raw materials, is projected to increase the ITER cost estimate (termed "resource estimate" by the ITER Organization). The Council ordered an independent review of the resource estimates by an international committee to be chaired by Dr. Frank Briscoe of the European Union. The U.S. had previously announced that it expected the cost of its ITER contribution would increase by at least 30 percent, to at least $1.45 billion.
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