ITER plan looks to recharge hopes for fusion power

USA Today : On Nov. 19-20, the ITER Council, with representatives from China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States, met at the Chateau de Cadarache in France to visit the ITER site and review a progress report on the project, projected to cost $10 Billion Euros (about $12.5 Billion at today’s exchange rates) over its 30-year lifetime. Representatives signed $518 million worth of agreements to go ahead and buy magnet and vacuum equipment for the project.

But all is not well for ITER. “To keep momentum, ITER needs the collective efforts and continued support from its members, laying the foundations for a new model of global scientific collaboration,” said Kaname Ikeda, director-general of the ITER Organization, in a statement at the meeting.

The bad news comes from the United States which, “cannot live up to our commitments” to ITER, the Energy Department’s Gene Nardella told an advisory committee earlier this month. Congress allocated only $20.5 million for the project, just enough for staffing, instead of a requested $214 million for 2009. A National Research Council panel in June warned, “The lack of funding stability will make it difficult for the U.S. to effectively participate in ITER, and ultimately, to access and thus benefit from the valuable scientific and technical knowledge to be gained from the facility.”