Washington D.C. (AsiaNews) - This weekend in Washington D.C. members of countries promoting the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project meet to decide who will win the 10 billion dollar, 30 year-bid to build the world's first experimental fusion reactor. Sites in Cadarche, France and Rokkasho-mura, Japan are the two front-running candidates, France-Presse reports.
Countries contributing to the innovative reactor's common financing are the United States, Canada, European Union, Japan, China, and Russia, all eager to advance nuclear technology to promote safer forms of limitless energy by 2050.
Currently nuclear energy plants utilize the process of fission, or splitting of atoms, to obtain the release of energy in "controlled" chain reactions. Fusion, on the other hand, is the opposite process of uniting heavy atoms of hydrogen (deuterium) at 100 million degrees Celsius, as in found to occur naturally in solar radiation.
Fears of environmental "fission" catastrophes are real. Members note the Chernobyl accident (in 1986) and its millions of tons of nuclear waste threatening leakage as the two main reasons behind the project's international sponsorship of "safety culture".
Fusion, too, has its safety concerns, but it promises to have no hazardous bi-products or waste.
Lately nuclear fusion has been successful in small-scale experiments, but only in 5-6 minute sustainable events. Other problematics include: confining charged particles at such high temperatures and sustaining stable reactions for continuous energy supply for commercial use.
The ITER project appears to be one practical outcome of years of atomic safety research conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), of which the Holy See is a member. In recent years, IAEA sessions have listened to appeals from Vatican authorities who encouraged member states "to not turn ploughshares into swords" and to advocate "safety culture" when using nuclear energy for peaceful, non-hazardous purposes.
Meanwhile, last November an international environmental safety panel met to study such global concerns at the Vatican's Academy of Sciences. Results of the closed-door forum are expected to be published soon. (MS)