| ITER goes to France | | Print | |
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After 18 months of deadlock ministers from the six countries involved in the ITER project, the next experimental fusion reactor, have agree that it should be located in Cadarache in Southern France. France had been competing against Japan to host the €10 billion project. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) will be the most expensive joint scientific project after the International Space Station. Officials from a six-party consortium (The European Union, the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea and China) signed the deal in Moscow on Tuesday 28 June. Japan earlier withdrew its bid, after a deal was worked out for the "runner-up" to receive a generous concessions package. According to the package, Japan will get 20% of the project's 200 research posts while providing only 10% of the expenses, and host a related materials research facility - of which half the construction costs will be shouldered by the EU. ITER would be the first fusion device to produce thermal energy at the level of conventional electricity producing power stations, and would pave the way for the first prototype commercial power station. To use controlled fusion reactions on Earth as an energy source, it is necessary to heat a gas to temperatures exceeding 100 million Celsius - many times hotter than the centre of the Sun. The technical requirements to do this, which scientists have spent decades developing, are immense. But the rewards, if ITER can be made to work successfully, are extremely attractive. One kilogram of fusion fuel would produce the same amount of energy as 10,000,000 kg of fossil fuel. |
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