Japan consoled with contracts as France snares fusion project

Abstract

France has been chosen to host a billion-dollar international thermonuclear experiment. After an 18-month stalemate over whether Japan or France should host the project ITER, the Japanese finally bowed out on 28 June in return for a hefty compensation package. Scientists hope that, now the experiment's location has been decided, it could be up and running by 2015 (see 'Securing the funds'). If all goes well, it will be the first fusion experiment that generates more energy than it uses. The promise of fusion is well known. Using the same reactions that power the stars, hydrogen nuclei can be fused to produce helium, releasing huge amounts of energy and no high-level radioactive waste. But the line that usable fusion power is 40 years away, and always will be, is sadly just as familiar. Recent progress has been promising, however, especially for tokamak reactors, in which hot plasma is confined in a floating doughnut shape by superconducting magnets. Both Europe's JET and Japan's JT-60 tokamaks have achieved short periods in which the energy released approaches the energy put in: JET holds the record, with a maximum power output of 16 megawatts. At more than 12 metres across, the plasma ring in ITER will be about twice as big as JET's, and will hopefully generate 400700 megawatts of power. Negotiations over ITER's home have been deadlocked since December 2003. The United States and South Korea backed a Japanese site at Rokkasho, while China and Russia supported the European Union's bid for Cadarache in southern France. But at Tuesday's meeting of ITER's six international partners in Moscow, ministers finally agreed.