By Anne-France White - 21st November 2006
The EU and six nations signed an accord on Iter today, launching a €10bn project on fusion energy.
Commission president José Manuel Barroso and EU research commissioner Janez Potocnik attended the signing ceremony, which was hosted in Paris by French president Jacques Chirac.
The accord is the result of years of talks between the EU, the US, South Korea, Russia, China, India and Japan – which together represent over half of the world’s population.
The deal establishes the international organisation that will implement the Iter fusion energy project (the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor).
The €10bn project, which will run for 35 years, will produce the first sustained fusion reactor aimed at developing a clean, cheap and abundant energy source as an alternative to fossil fuels.
The reactor will aim to turn seawater into fuel by mimicking the way the sun produces energy – Iter members argue that this will generate more energy and less radioactivity than contemporary nuclear power plants, without producing greenhouse gases.
“We now have the framework which will enable us to tackle one of the most urgent challenges for humanity: inventing clean and durable energy sources for tomorrow,” Barroso said after the signing ceremony.
“At a time when energy demand is constantly increasing and climate change is speeding up dangerously, the stakes are considerable, even vital for our planet.”
The first experimental reactor, which will to be built in Cadarache (France), is expected to take shape by 2009.
The French site was chosen after long negotiations with Japan, which was also keen to build the reactor on its soil.
The EU, as the host bloc, will shoulder 50 per cent of the €5bn construction costs.
"If nothing changes, humanity will have consumed, in 200 years, most of the fossil fuel resources accumulated over hundreds of millions of years, provoking, at the same time, a veritable climate calamity," Chirac said at the ceremony.
"The Iter project is a victory in the general interest of humanity.”
The US representative at the signing, undersecretary for science Raymond Orbach, noted that the stakes are high.
“We will have enough energy for the whole world if it works,” he said.
“What we're talking about is 30 years from now power from this flowing into the grid. Skepticism is well-placed, but we think it's worthwhile trying.''
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