The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is intended to show that nuclear fusion, which harnesses the same energy that heats the sun to generate electricity, can wean the world off pollution-producing fossil fuels.
Nuclear fusion produces no greenhouse gas emissions and only low levels of radioactive waste.
Competition for reactor was intense.
At stake are billions of dollars worth of research funding, construction and engineering contracts, and the creation of up to 100,000 new jobs.
Japan, the United States and South Korea wanted the facility built at Rokkasho in northern Japan.
Russia, China and the European Union wanted it at Cadarache, in southern France.[...]
Some scientists have warned that both sites are in seismically active zones and could be prone to earth tremors.
The 10-billion-euro ($12.18-billion) experimental reactor that should now begin taking shape in Cadarache, southern France, will seek to turn seawater into fuel by mimicking the way the sun produces energy.
But critics argue it could be at least 50 years before a commercially viable reactor is built, if at all.[...]
Power has been harnessed from fusion in laboratories but scientists have so far been unable to build a commercially viable reactor, despite decades of research.
The 500 megawatt ITER reactor will use deuterium, extracted from seawater, as its major fuel and a giant electromagnetic ring to fuse atomic nuclei at extremely high temperatures.
One of the biggest challenges facing scientists is to build a reactor that can sustain temperatures of about 100 million Celsius (180 million F) for long enough to generate power.[...]
The ITER project began in 1985 but the scientific challenges and wrangling between its partners over the site and financing have caused repeated delays.
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