A six-party consortium chose France as the site for an experimental nuclear-fusion reactor, a spokeswoman for the EU said yesterday, opening the way for development of a potential source of clean, inexhaustible energy.
Antonia Mochan, spokeswoman for the European Commission's science and research committee, said the decision was made in Moscow at a closed-door meeting of the consortium.
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.
PHOTO: AP
"As a project of unprecedented complexity spanning more than a generation, ITER marks a major step forward international science cooperation," EU Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik said in a statement.
"Now that we have reached consensus on the site for ITER, we will make all efforts to finalize the agreement on the project, so that construction can begin as soon as possible," Potocnik said.
The project is funded by a consortium comprised of Japan, the US, South Korea, Russia, China and the EU, but the six parties had been divided over where to put the test reactor.
Competition was intense. At stake are billions of US dollars worth of research funding, construction and engineering contracts, and the creation of up to 100,000 new jobs, according to estimates cited by Dow Jones NewsWires.
Japan, the US and South Korea wanted the facility built at Rokkasho in northern Japan. Russia, China and the EU wanted it at Cadarache, in southern France.
Beijing yesterday dismissed as “groundless speculation” a report that said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) was the target of a Chinese spy plot. The article by the New York Times, published on Thursday, said that US intelligence officials concluded that a Chinese executive linked to a Singapore-based data center company had been funneling information to Beijing. “The report in question is based on groundless speculation and is nothing more than an attempt to smear China,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) told a regular briefing. China is in a race for tech dominance with the US, which restricts the export
Long dubbed an “air-conditioned nation,” Singapore is experimenting with cooling alternatives from chilled beams to “passive displacement” to curb its thirst for energy-guzzling air-conditioning. The city-state has the highest per-capita air-conditioner ownership rate in Southeast Asia, with about 99 percent of private residences equipped with cooling units. Singapore’s local building sector accounts for one-fifth of its emissions, while cooling itself accounts for 40 to 60 percent of a building’s energy consumption, according to studies. A stroll down Orchard Road highlights that dependence. Shoppers are greeted by blasts of cool air that waft into the street as doors swing open — a major draw
KIRIBATI: Nine people on a skiff had been reported missing after they failed to return to Ruo Island in Micronesia on July 30. Four people remained missing Five people, including two children, were rescued this week in the South Pacific island nation of Kiribati after three months drifting at sea in a 20-foot (6m) skiff, authorities said. Another four remained missing. Villagers rescued the group on Sunday off Fanning Island in Kiribati, the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) reported, after they had drifted an estimated 5,400km east from the Federated States of Micronesia. The US Coast Guard in Guam yesterday confirmed that the skiff with nine people aboard had been reported missing after it failed to return to Ruo Island in Micronesia on July 30. 10-DAY SEARCH A 10-day search covering
33 MISSING: The unprecedented number of empty seats at the fifth plenum, an annual gathering of top officials, serve as a symbol of the extent of the purges under Xi Jinping China expelled a record number of officials from the Chinese Communist party (CCP) as it concluded a major political gathering, which saw an unprecedented number of empty seats indicating the scale of the purges under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). A record 33 members were expelled at this week’s fifth plenum, a gathering of top officials that takes place roughly once a year. Just 279 of the full and alternate members of the CCP’s Central Committee attended this week’s gathering, compared with the 376 originally named as members in 2022. That means that more than 25 percent of the original cohort were
RSS