An agreement on the construction of the world's first
international thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER) was signed
in Paris on Tuesday.
Representatives of Russia, the United States, the European
Union, China, South Korea, Japan and India signed the agreement to
finance the 10-billion-euro (US$12 billion) reactor in the presence
of French President Jacques Chirac and European Commission
President Commission Jose Manuel Barroso at France's Elysee
Palace.
According to the pact, the construction of the ITER is to begin
early in 2007 in Cadarache in the southern French region of
Provence. The reactor is expected to generate energy by combining
atoms instead of splitting them.
As fossil fuels are now in short supply, the reactor would
provide a clean and limitless alternative that could attain within
40 years the level of industrial electricity generation at new
power plants.
(Xinhua News Agency November 22, 2006)
