Finally after being delayed for several years, a agreement to build ITER (the International Termonuclear Experimental Reactor) has been reached. ITER will be placed in the European Union. There has been intense discussions on where to host the project with two sites, one in the EU (more specifically Cadarache, south of France) and one in the Japans.
The partners in the projects are the European Union, the United States, the Russian Federation, the Japans, China and South Korea. In order to get the Japans to yield their site they were offered 20% of the research posts while only paying for 10% of the project, the Japans will also host a material research facility.
It was important to host this in the Union over the Japans due to a number of reasons, firstly the EU has made the most progress in the area of controlled fusion research and secondly hosting such an important project in an earthquake threatened area is not an alternative as I see it.
The project is one of the most important scientific projects ever undertaken, it will in the end give us cheap, clean and safe energy. When comparing to the currently used fission reactors, fusion reactors do not produce any low active nuclear waste and fusion reactors cannot cause any major accidents.
Bibliography:
BBC
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