Climate fears boost nuclear fusion project

Date: 20/11/1997

By Rory Watson

THE EU's fusion programme is receiving a new boost as governments increasingly examine ways to tackle the phenomenon of global warming.

The question marks which hung over the fusion project have been removed following a decision by member states to continue Union-funded work on the development of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

This will draw on the experience of the Union's 20-year-old Joint European Taurus (JET) research programme at Culham (in the UK) looking into the use of nuclear fusion to create a plentiful supply of cheap and safe electricity.

The decision by EU research ministers earlier this month to give the project their political support removes the nagging doubts which had previously hung over the programme as some governments balked at the costs involved and others questioned the validity of a project which could take several decades to come to fruition.

Governments have now set themselves the target of reaching a final agreement, including a decision on the financial costs, when research ministers meet again in February.

With several member states - including Germany, despite its wider campaign to reduce its EU budget payments - prepared to continue funding at present levels, a deal appears within reach.

The latest acknowledgement of the potential contribution which nuclear fusion can make to meeting the world's energy demands has come as governments prepare for next month's global summit on climate change in Kyoto.

A further boost to fusion research has come from the US, where an influential report handed to President Bill Clinton this autumn criticised the country's lack of a strategic energy programme. It recommended a 900-million-ecu increase in applied energy-technology R&D, with specific reference to fusion research.

Earlier this year, Commission officials set out five possible scenarios, ranging from closure of the fusion programme to construction of the ITER-like reactor virtually single-handedly by the Union.

Ministerial endorsement of a third, 'interim' scenario will allow the Union to continue studying the feasibility of the ITER and prepare for its possible construction and operation by examining the scientific, technical, financial and organisational issues involved.

It will ensure that the special groups carrying out this task, whose original remit ends next July, will remain in operation for a further three years until 2001, when the final decision on whether to construct the ITER or not will be made.

The Union's commitment to the future of fusion was also underlined last week by the Italian government's announcement that it would suggest possible sites for the reactor.

The initiative will strengthen the Union's hand in negotiations with Japan, Russia, the US and Canada, which are all involved in the ITER project, when it eventually comes to deciding where the reactor should be based.