France Wins Bid for $12-billion Nuclear Fusion Test Unit
France on June 28 won an 18-month bid against Japan to host a $12-billion international project to prove technology behind clean nuclear power based on abundant hydrogen. After further agreements are signed, procurement could begin for the site near Marseilles next year leading to possible prototype fusion power plant by 2035.
Roughly half the project budget will go into construction of buildings and equipment with the rest allocated for funding 20 years of trial operations. With designs of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) taking place in Germany and Japan, the fusion machine will occupy a cylindrical space about 24 m tall and 24 m wide at a new complex at Cadarache.