Posted on 01/16/2004 3:56:05 PM PST by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia on Thursday declined Japanese pleas to back Tokyo's bid to host a disputed nuclear fusion reactor as the global contest for the multi-billion project threatened to hurt relations among the participants.
Japan and France are vying for the right to build the world's first such reactor, but the six members of the joint venture have so far failed to agree on the site. The plant would generate energy the same way the sun does.
Russia and China favor the French site of Cadarache. South Korea and the United States -- in a move seen in Paris as a bid to punish it for opposing the U.S.-led war in Iraq -- back Japan's fishing village of Rokkasho.
Japanese Science Minister Takeo Kawamura was in Moscow on Thursday for closed-door talks with Russia's nuclear top brass, but was given a firm 'no' mixed with diplomatic politeness from the Russian side, a source in Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry said.
"Our position is clear. They haven't been able to convince us, although we were really nice to them today," the source told Reuters after talks between Kawamura and Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev.
"The French site is cheaper and thus more acceptable."
The decision on the $12 billion project, due to be taken by consensus among the participants of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), has been postponed until February.
Russia's staunch refusal could undermine the recently warming relations between Moscow and Tokyo. The two countries remain technically at war, with Russia refusing Japan's demand to return four small islands in the Far East seized in the final days of World War II.
Nuclear fusion has been touted as a solution to the world's energy problems, as it would be low in pollution and could theoretically use seawater as fuel.
Fusion involves sticking atomic particles together as opposed to existing nuclear reactors and weapons which produce energy by splitting atoms apart. Fifty years of research have so far failed to produce a commercially viable fusion reactor.
All the more reason we need to go our own way and build more state-of-the-art conventional nukes NOW.
Concentrating a few million earth masses inside Tokyo city limits could have an effect on the Bullet Train.
Two words that should NEVER be used in the discussion of nuclear powered *anything*:
French, and Cheap.
The fusion reaction hasn't been sustained in any way that could justify even the design of a practical powerplant.
Somone's nuts.
With our luck, Homer Simpson will be in charge of maintaining the magnetic bottle containing the fusion reaction. Maybe we're better off with it in southern France, when that sucker breaks containment. Bye-bye Frenchies.
We ought to build two plants. One in each place. The Russians, the Chinese and the French can finance that one, and the Japanese, the South Koreans, and the US can finance the other one.
No. We ought to build our own right here in the good ol' US of A,
independent of what the other nations do.
If any of 'em want to build their own, or cooperate with each other, that's fine by me too. As long as they pay for it themselves.
But as far as what WE should do, we should just do our own thing without 'em.
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