EU and the ITER project
The European Commission will be releasing proposals on the EU’s role in the international ITER project. ITER is short for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. ITER will be an innovative project that will try to simulate the Sun’s energy source, Fusion. Fusion will be a lot more environmentally friendly than current Fission. In fusion two light Atomic nuclei merge to form larger ones. This process requires an immense amount of energy to be successful. Fusion reactors could be the energy sources of the future.
The Joint Undertaking will be funded directly from the budgets of Euratom and participating members. Funds will be specially regulated, principally for the commissioning of high-technology pieces of equipment essential for the project.
ITER is expected to cost some €4.75 billion, spread over 10 years. It is hoped that the final reactor will produce a reaction of phenomenal heat, using the same reacting system found in the sun - squeezing hydrogen atoms together to produce new elements, and releasing vast quantities of energy in the process.The project remains such a huge task because the temperature of the reacting plasma will be so high that it must be contained within a magnetic field. The ITER reactor is expected to open in 2016.
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Administrator @ August 24, 2006