A protracted impasse over where to site ITER was broken on 28 June, when the six partners in the international experiment to prove the feasibility of generating energy by fusion announced it would be built in Cadarache, France. China and Russia had supported that site, put forward by the European Union (EU), while South Korea and the US had backed Japan’s proposed site, Rokkasho.
Japan conceded because it “really wants to promote ITER,” says ITER international team leader Yasuo Shimomura. “A further delay will create serious negative impact for ITER as well as for the fusion program.” The meeting in Moscow at which ITER parties agreed on the site “was a very emotional experience,” Raymond Orbach, director of the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science, said in a briefing. “This was the world getting together to deal with a common problem, with common resolve, and making sacrifices in the...
