France to host fusion reactor project

France has won the right to host the international experimental nuclear reactor beating off competition from Japan.

Ministers from the partner countries signed an agreement at a meeting in Moscow making Cadarache in France the site for the so-called International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER. The project, at a cost of 10 billion euros, is backed by China, the European Union, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. It aims to mimic the way the sun produces energy, potentially providing an inexhaustible source of low-cost energy using seawater as fuel. Japan, which had been wrangling with France for more than a year to host ITER, reportedly sought a number of incentives to give up its bid.

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