The 35-nation Iter project has a groundbreaking aim to create clean and
limitless energy but it is turning into the ‘most delayed and cost-inflated
science project in history’
It was a project that promised the sun. Researchers would use the world’s most
advanced technology to design a machine that could generate atomic fusion, the
process that drives the stars – and so create a source of cheap, non-polluting
power.
That was initially the aim of the International Thermonuclear Experimental
Reactor (Iter) which 35 countries – including European states, China, Russia and
the US – agreed to build at Saint-Paul-lez-Durance in southern France at a
starting cost of $6bn. Work began in 2010, with a commitment that there would be
energy-producing reactions by 2020.
Continue reading...