SOLVING the world鈥檚 energy problems by harnessing the reactions that drive
the Sun seems a more distant dream than ever. Lack of funds means American
scientists working on the next big nuclear fusion project, the International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), are now packing their bags and
returning home from the project鈥檚 design base in Germany.
Given the looming global economic recession, there seems little hope that the
remaining partners will pick up the slack left by the American withdrawal.
鈥淓verybody believes that ITER as developed is dead in the water,鈥� says Ronald
Parker, one of the deputy directors for the design phase of the project, who is
now returning to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
ITER was born from the spirit of d茅tente that flourished at the end of
the Cold War. Conceived at a 1985 Soviet-American summit in Geneva, the project
soon grew to include Japan and Europe. Its goal was to create a gigantic
magnetic doughnut鈥攁 tokamak鈥攖hat would confine hot hydrogen isotopes
and induce their nuclei to fuse. The reactor was the natural successor of the
world鈥檚 leading fusion projects, the Joint European Torus in Culham,
Oxfordshire, and the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at Princeton University in New
Jersey. ITER should have paved the way for commercial reactors generating power
from a clean and abundant fuel.
Advertisement
But for the past three years, ITER has been in deep trouble. In 1995, a
presidential commission declared that an annual budget in the US of anything
less than $320 million a year would kill even a scaled-down ITER and gut
domestic magnetic fusion projects. Congress responded with a budget of around
$230 million per year.
In July this year, the US failed to sign a three-year extension of the ITER
agreement. There was a brief glimmer of hope as energy secretary Bill Richardson
pledged US support for another year. But Congress would have none of it.
American scientists seconded to the design phase of ITER, based at Garching near
Munich, are now being recalled. 鈥淲e called our secondees and told them to
transfer their responsibilities, wrap up their work, and prepare to come home,鈥�
says Anne Davies, the Department of Energy鈥檚 associate director for fusion
energy sciences. Although the US will complete a few projects for
ITER鈥攕uch as developing a magnetic coil for the tokamak鈥攊ts
effective withdrawal leaves the project crippled.
The best hope now is that the remaining partners will proceed with a
slimmed-down reactor. With Russia flat broke, that leaves the decision with the
European Union and Japan. Klaus Pinkau, scientific director of the Max Planck
Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching, says: 鈥淒o they want to do it? I don鈥檛
know if the Europeans or the Japanese do.鈥�
ITER鈥檚 biggest cheerleaders are in Japan, which has in the past stated that
it would like to host the reactor. Hidetoshi Nakamura, director of nuclear
fusion research at Japan鈥檚 Science and Technology Agency, says that an advisory
council is now considering the value of hosting ITER. 鈥淏ut the advisory council
cannot make a clear decision at this moment because the financial situation is
not clear,鈥� he says.
