MUNICH

Keilhacker: time to improve design? Credit: JET

A decision about whether to build a multibillion dollar international facility to test the feasibility of nuclear fusion as an energy source is almost certain to be delayed by three years because of lack of political enthusiasm.

The four partners in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project — the European Union (EU), Japan, United States and Russia — set up an ‘exploratory’ committee last year to look at non-scientific issues relating to the siting of the facility. The committee has concluded that, given the financial difficulties faced by all the partners, it is too soon to move to the construction phase when the current design phase ends in July next year. A formal decision by the partners on the proposed delay is expected early next year.

The conclusions of the committee coincide with new thinking about support for the project within the EU. The union's member states finance a joint fusion programme to which the European Commission has contributed nearly ECU900 million (US$1 billion) during its five-year fourth Framework research programme (FP4).

The level of support for fusion research in the fifth Framework programme (FP5), due to succeed FP4 in 1999, is currently under discussion. If the construction of ITER were to start next year, as originally planned, then the support would need to be increased in FP5 and future Framework programmes by between 10 and 40 per cent, depending on whether the facility is sited in Europe.

Some EU member states, such as the United Kingdom, Sweden and Austria, strongly oppose any increase in the fusion budget, and France and Germany are unenthusiastic about the idea. The European Parliament, which has the final say in approving the FP5 budget, is deeply divided about support for fusion research on both financial and environmental grounds.

Final financial decisions on FP5 must be made by early next year. To help decision-making, the Netherlands, which holds the EU's rotating presidency until the end of June, has asked the commission for its response to five options it has set out for ITER's future, including its comments on their implications for FP5 funding.

Two of the options are relatively extreme, and few take them seriously. One would be to stop fusion research completely. The second option would be to abandon the four-way ITER partnership and pursue a European-only version of ITER.

A further option would be to abandon plans to build ITER, but continue scientific research into fusion. But the Dutch paper warns that this option could cause the research to lose its focus on developing a source of future energy, because it would no longer be linked to the building of a reactor.

Another option, to start construction next year as originally planned, would mean increasing the fusion budget by 12 per cent in FP5 compared to FP4.

The option favoured by the Netherlands — and apparently by the commission — would be to postpone a decision on construction until after 2000, and to maintain the fusion budget at its FP4 level, extending funding for JET (the Joint European Torus) as a scientific bridge.

The predicted delay does not necessarily mean that ITER would come into operation later than planned, says Martin Keilhacker, director of JET. Instead, things would be done in a different order. A two- to three-year interim phase would allow a more detailed technological review of ITER to be completed, for example.

Keilhacker says that this would give time to carry out more scientific experiments to help reduce the uncertainty about the design, particularly the key issue of ignition of the fusion plasma.

ITER partners also suggest that this time could be used to make progress on choosing potential sites for the facility. Keilhacker says it would make sense for pre-licensing procedures to begin for several potential sites at the same time, because licensing is a factor in determining the rate of progress in construction of a reactor, which can take many years.

But companies involved in reactor building have expressed disappointment about the proposed delay. Matthias Kohler, executive director of Siemens's fusion programme, says that “as a taxpayer” he can understand the need for delay. But as a representative of industry he is “disappointed, because ITER represents the first chance for industry to begin to be a real player in the development of fusion technology”.