I am often suspicious that "low volume" physicists rail on ITER but "high volume" physicists appreciate ITER. Its kind of like the 1 microamp guy vs the 1 amp guy.
Suprisingly, if you talk to particle accelerator people, there is usually a beef between the heavy colliders (high particle count / big stuff) and the high speed colliders (geneva). It seems the general public gravitates towards 'speed' being more impressive then volume. I personally think the volume people might be on to something, because if your making something for mankind to use, you need alot of it. There is value towards 'cheaper' transmutation.
I like this picture here
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/ITER_Tokamak_and_Plant_Systems_%282016%29_%2841783636452%29.jpg/1800px-ITER_Tokamak_and_Plant_Systems_%282016%29_%2841783636452%29.jpgI have a bad feeling they might get something fundamentally wrong, like the geometry of something hard to make lol
2040 bet pool on which part of it will need to be redesigned . I think so long they get the pipes right it might have a chance