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“The old joke is that nuclear fusion is 30 years away and always will be,” quips Greg De Temmerman, managing director of Paris-based energy think tank Zenon Research. In fact, the joke has become so hackneyed over the decades it has been banned by editors at the Economist. “But more seriously, many things are happening right now in the field,” De Temmerman adds. Jokes aside, they are. Earlier this month, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor eclipsed previous records by sustaining a high plasma temperature for minutes (1,056 seconds). It reached two milestones: a one-million-ampere current and a 1,000-second...

Inside JET's torus, with superimposed plasma. (UKAEA) Late last century, the Joint European Torus (JET) near Oxford, UK, churned out 22 megajoules of energy in what was, at the time, a record in fusion power. Now, experimental upgrades have brought the facility into line with the technology anticipated for a major international project, resulting in the production of nearly three times that amount of power. The advances are a major step forward for tokamak-based fusion, bringing us ever closer to a balance point where we can harvest a near endless stream of energy without the cost of polluting emissions or...

The world's largest magnet, a decade in the making, is ready to be shipped to France where it will form the centrepiece of a project to replicate the power of the sun. This will form a central part of ITER, a £17 billion ($23.95 billion) machine that creates fusion energy on Earth, built in France by 35 partner countries to find a 'true renewable power'. The hydrogen fusion system is a test to prove the technology can work and that power can be created and controlled to provide carbon-free safe electricity. While fusion power has been generated on Earth, it...

The ITER fusion reactor will fire up for the first time in December 2025, the €18-billion project’s governing council confirmed today. The date for “first plasma” is 5 years later than under the old schedule, and to get there the council is asking the project partners—China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States—to cough up an extra €4 billion ($4.5 billion). “It is expected, if there are no objections, that we can approve [the schedule] by November and then we can move forward,” says ITER director general Bernard Bigot. ITER aims to show that it...

ITER, the international fusion reactor being built in France, will stand 10 stories tall, weigh three times as much as the Eiffel Tower, and cost its seven international partners $18 billion or more. The result of decades of planning, ITER will not produce fusion energy until 2027 at the earliest. And it will be decades before an ITER-like plant pumps electricity into the grid. Surely there is a quicker and cheaper route to fusion energy. Fusion enthusiasts have a slew of schemes for achieving the starlike temperatures or crushing pressures needed to get hydrogen nuclei to come together in an...

An ongoing tussle between the EU institutions over the future funding of a controversial nuclear fusion project—which will come under the spotlight during the Danish EU presidency—threatens to hack into the European Commission’s €85-billion ($111-billion) Horizon 2020 budget proposal. The funding dispute centers around the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project based at the Cadarache research facility in southern France. Construction is to begin this year. The ITER reactor aims to replicate the kind of fusion that occurs in the sun, creating cheap and abundant energy that does not rely on fossil fuels. … The Commission fears that including ITER within...

Generating electricity by nuclear fusion has long looked like a chimera. A reactor being built in Germany may change that. AS THE old joke has it, fusion is the power of the future—and always will be. The sales pitch is irresistible: the principal fuel, a heavy isotope of hydrogen called deuterium, can be extracted from water. In effect, therefore, it is in limitless supply. Nor, unlike fusion’s cousin, nuclear fission, does the process produce much in the way of radioactive waste. It does not release carbon dioxide, either. Which all sounds too good to be true. And it is....

International partners are likely to scale back the first version of the ITER reactor.Corrected online: 28 May 2009 A 180-hectare stretch of land has already been cleared for ITER.ITER St Paul-lez-Durance, France ITER — a multi-billion-euro international experiment boldly aiming to prove atomic fusion as a power source — will initially be far less ambitious than physicists had hoped, Nature has learned.Faced with ballooning costs and growing delays, ITER's seven partners are likely to build only a skeletal version of the device at first. The project's governing council said last June that the machine should turn on in 2018; the...

Nuclear-fusion is the source of energy that could guarantee America’s true energy independence for the present as well as the future. ... Fusion is the awesome process that powers the sun and all other stars in the universe. Compared to fusion, in terms of power yield, all other sources of energy, with no exception, are mere morsels.

ALARM - Signature of the Iter treaty by seven international partners PARIS - Seven international partners (China, South Korea, the United States, India, Japan, Russia, European Union) signed Tuesday in Paris the treaty Iter, a project of experimental engine of thermonuclear fusion which aims at providing in several decades a clean and unlimited energy.

...With insufficient fossil fuel reserves, our country very early on invested in energy alternatives. The two oil crises of the '70s convinced us to accelerate the construction of facilities to produce safe and economically profitable nuclear energy. That strategy paid off: In 30 years, France's energy independence has risen from 30% to 50%. While turning toward nuclear energy might have seemed unusual 60 years ago, I believe that it was an especially visionary choice. The development of nuclear energy enabled us to meet several objectives: energy independence and security of supply, and competitive, stable energy prices. This nuclear option is...

The Monju nuclear reactor located in Tsuruga, 350 kilometers (217 miles) west of Tokyo, was a signature of Japan's energy projects until December 1995 when it was closed due to a massive leak of sodium coolant. The Nagoya High Court in January 2003 for the first time ordered the closure of a Japanese reactor, siding with a lawsuit filed before the accident by local people who wanted Monju shut down due to fears of a meltdown. But the Supreme Court backed the government which said it has taken sufficient measures to ensure safety at Monju, administered by the government-run Japan...

Z Produces Fusion Neutrons, Sandia Scientists Confirm; Huge Pulsed Power Machine Enters Fusion Arena PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (April 7, 2003) -- Throwing its hat into the ring of machines that offer the possibility of achieving controlled nuclear fusion, Sandia National Laboratories' Z machine has created a hot dense plasma that produces thermonuclear neutrons, Sandia researchers announced today at a news conference at the April meeting of the American Physical Society in Philadelphia. The neutrons emanate from fusion reactions within a BB-sized deuterium capsule placed within the target of the huge machine. Compressing hot dense plasmas that produce neutrons is an important...

Details of an agreement on the roles of host and non-hosting countries involved in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor that is likely to be hosted in France were revealed Thursday. Under the deal struck between Japan and the European Union, the unsuccessful bidder will be given the post of secretary general at ITER headquarters. ITER-related facilities also will be built in that country. The final decision on the location of ITER is expected to be made during ministerial-level talks among the six nations involved, scheduled to be held late next month in Russia. Japan is expected to enter the final...

Japan on Friday rejected claims by the French government that Tokyo has reached a deal with the European Union that could lead Japan to drop its bid to host an international nuclear fusion reactor. Francois D'Aubert, deputy minister of research, said in a statement Thursday that a "technical agreement" on mapping out future cooperation on the project had been reached at a meeting the same day in Geneva. But Toichi Sakata, director general of the Research and Development Bureau of the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, said in Tokyo that there had been no decision on where the...

Japan has scrapped its bid to host the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in exchange for construction and staffing perks, sources and the French government said Thursday. The decision brings to an end a drawn-out dispute between two camps in the six-nation ITER project over where to build the reactor. The United States and South Korea backed Japan's bid to have the reactor built in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, while China, Russia and the EU wanted the site to be located in Cadarache, southern France. Francois d'Aubert, France's deputy research minister, released a statement Thursday saying an agreement had been reached...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan may give up its bid to host the world's first nuclear fusion reactor, making it likely that the 10 billion euro ($12.87 billion) experimental reactor will be built in France instead, a Japanese newspaper said on Wednesday. Japan might make the concession because it believed it would win construction work and jobs even if it did not host the project, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, quoting government sources. "The government hopes to finish negotiating with ... the countries concerned and to reach a formal agreement next month," the newspaper said. Nuclear fusion, using sea water to create...

China will support France as the site of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)project, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue Thursday. After studying the two proposed sites in France and Japan for the construction of an experimental nuclear fusion reactor, China had decided to support France, Zhang said. France had been competing with Japan as the site of the multi-billion dollar project, but China hoped the issue could be settled according to consultations among all parties, she said. The project is the world's largest-yet nuclear fusion power plant with technology touted as a solution to global energy problems. Once completed...

China supports France in ITER project China will support France as the site of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)project, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue Thursday. After studying the two proposed sites in France and Japan for the construction of an experimental nuclear fusion reactor, China had decided to support France, Zhang said. France had been competing with Japan as the site of the multi-billion dollar project, but China hoped the issue could be settled according to consultations among all parties, she said. The project is the world's largest-yet nuclear fusion power plant with technology touted as a...