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France to host world's first fusion plant
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-28 21:55
Science's quest to find a cheap and inexhaustible way to meet global energy
needs took a major step forward on Tuesday when a 30-nation consortium chose
France to host the world's first nuclear fusion reactor.
After months of wrangling, France defeated a bid from Japan and signed a deal
to site the 10-billion-euro ($12.18-billion) experimental reactor in Cadarache,
near Marseille.
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| This undated image released by the Nuclear Energy Center (CEN) of
Cadarache near Aix-en-Provence, southern France, shows the current
installations, foreground left, right, and a computer rendition of the
future nuclear fusion plant at right. French President Jacques Chirac
announced Tuesday, June 28, 2005, that a six-party consortium chose
Cadarache as the site for the experimental nuclear fusion reactor, opening
the way for development of a potential source of clean, inexhaustible
energy. [AP] |
The project will seek to turn
seawater into fuel by mimicking the way the sun produces energy. It would be
cleaner than current nuclear reactors, would not rely on enriched uranium fuel
or produce plutonium.
But critics argue it could be at least 50 years before a commercially viable
reactor is built, if at all.
"We are making scientific history," Janez Potocnik, the European Union's
Science and Research Commissioner, told a news conference in Moscow, where the
multinational partners in the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental
Reactor) project were meeting. They also reached preliminary agreement on how to
fund one of the world's most expensive scientific experiments.
A nuclear fusion power station is the 'Holy Grail' for scientists trying to
find a viable alternative to the world's depleting stocks of oil and gas. The
search took on new significance as crude this week reached a record price of
$60.95 a barrel in some trading.
Next week, a summit of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations in
Scotland is to discuss climate change, widely blamed on burning fossil fuels for
energy.
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