France chosen for N-project

PARIS — France was chosen Tuesday as the home for an experimental $13 billion nuclear fusion project scientists say will produce a boundless source of clean and cheap energy.

A consortium of United States, the European Union, China, Russia, Japan had been divided over whether to put the test reactor in France or Japan, and competition was intense. The United States had favored placing the plant in Japan. At stake was billions of dollars for research, construction and engineering.

The threat of global warming has brought nuclear power — currently available only through fission and long out of favor — back to the forefront as a way of generating energy because it creates no so-called greenhouse gases, a cause of global warming.

Nuclear fission — with heat as a byproduct — occurs when heavy atoms such as those of uranium or plutonium are split. But the process leaves behind highly radioactive waste, and the reactors can catastrophically melt down.

Harnessing fusion as an energy source has long been a dream of physicists because it would be safer, cleaner and cheaper — using naturally abundant hydrogen as an energy source.

The major source of energy right now, the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, spews greenhouse gases into the Earth's atmosphere and trap the sun's heat. Oil supplies are expected to begin running short in about 50 years.

As a replacement, fusion would produce much more energy than fission, while leaving behind small amounts of relatively harmless waste and posing no danger of a nuclear meltdown.

France's Greens and other environmentalist groups argue, however, that the fusion project will turn the focus away from the immediate need to fight global warming.

"This is not good news for the fight against the greenhouse effect, because we're going to put $13 billion toward a project that has a term of 30-50 years, when we're not even sure it will be effective," Greens party lawmaker Noel Mamere said on France-Info radio.

But State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the United States was pleased the sides had agreed on a site. "Now the six partners will work together to resolve the other various technical and legal questions that exist so we can move forward on this critically important energy experiment," he said.

Participants will now negotiate the construction details and sign a final agreement, hopefully by year's end.

The project is expected to create 10,000 jobs and take about eight years to build.