EU warns of breakaway plans on [ITER] nuclear project

[phantom power]

(I'd like to get these guys in a room, and remind them that a working fusion technology could literally save the world's bacon, and while the climate is busily changing out from under us, they're arguing about who gets to build the %@$@#$! test reactor)

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Union (news - web sites) is pushing increasingly hard for an accord on the site for a landmark nuclear energy project, while treading carefully to avoid a fallout with global partners on the plans, notably Japan.

But in a sign of the growing tension over the decision, long-time chief EU negotiator Philippe Busquin has warned the EU should start to study the possibility of launching its own project, diplomats say.

The bloc's Dutch presidency is seeking to settle the disagreement over the location of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the world's first prototype nuclear fusion reactor, by the end of November.

The EU and Japan are competing to host ITER, aimed to be a test-bed for what is being billed as a clean, safe, inexhaustible energy source of the future.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1539&ncid=1539&e=2&u=/afp/20040924/sc_afp/science_energy_iter_eu_japan_040924110621

[NNadir]

1. Too bad. Our own Princeton Plasma Physics Lab here in the US

is vastly underfunded.

It's all crazy when you think about Iraq.