[cdn-nucl-l] Fusion Project's Chances Improve

["Adam McLean" <adam.mclean@utoronto.ca>]

Posted in the Toronto Star, November 12, 2001 and at:
http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/A
rticle_Type1&c=Article&cid=1005520252198&call_page=TS_Canada&call_pageid=968
332188774&call_pagepath=News/Canada

David Martin has decided to turn his opinion fusions way in classic fashion.

Adam

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Fusion project's chances improve
Canadian bid leads rivals, official says
Peter Calamai
Science Reporter


PETER BARNARD: Bid leader is optimistic about project.
OTTAWA — Chances have improved "considerably" that Ontario will be home to
the largest high-tech project in the world, says the man leading Canada's
bid for the $12 billion research centre intended to push nuclear fusion from
dream to reality.

Peter Barnard said the first round of formal international negotiations for
the project just held in Toronto demonstrated that Canada had a strong head
start over possible rival bids.

"We have the best location and we were the first of the partners to offer a
site," Barnard said in an interview yesterday.

"This would be the biggest thing to hit Canada in the decade," he said.

Canada's proposed site for the International Thermonuclear Experimental
Reactor, or ITER, is beside the Darlington nuclear power station, 60
kilometres east of Toronto on Lake Ontario.

It is highly rated by project planners because the essential supplies for
the fusion reactor are easily available next door: up to 600 megawatts of
electrical power and a source of tritium.

Nuclear fusion is what powers the sun: an almost inexhaustible source of
energy created by fusing together atoms of tritium, a radioactive form of
hydrogen, under intense heat and pressure.

The Ontario government has pledged $300 million toward Canada's estimated $2
billion portion of the project.

An economic impact study last year by Ernst & Young used computer models to
estimate that Ontario's gross domestic product would increase by more than
$5 billion over the three-decade life of the ITER project.

About $12 million in public funds has already been spent as Canada's share
of the basic design and research costs.


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`Fusion power is a high-tech fantasy. Even its supporters admit that it
won't produce commercial electricity for another 50 years, if ever.'

David Martin

Sierra Club spokesperson

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Double that amount has also been spent on preliminary work using donations
from the corporate sector.

In addition to committing $3 million for the initial stage, the federal
government has also formally endorsed the bid from ITER Canada which is a
not-for-profit body with members from industry, government and universities.

The nuclear fusion project has been controversial from its start in the
mid-1990s. In 1999, the U.S. dropped out as a potential partner when
Congress cut funding.

In Canada, the federal government eliminated funding for the country's only
experimental nuclear fusion reactor, called a tokamak, as part of the
deficit-fighting cuts.

In addition, anti-nuclear groups led by the Sierra Club have lined up
against ITER, complaining about possible health and safety hazards.

"Fusion power is a high-tech fantasy," says Sierra's David Martin.

"Even its supporters admit that it won't produce commercial electricity for
another 50 years, if ever."

Yet Canada's prospects to become the site of the experiment brightened
further when Japan failed to submit an expected bid to host the project
during the two days of formal negotiations at the end of last week.

Barnard, head of the Canadian bid team, said Japan and the leading potential
European bidder, France, both faced billions of dollars in extra costs if
they compete against Canada to host the project. That's because Canada's
potential participation in ITER is limited to provide a site, buildings, the
massive electricity requirements and the tritium fuel.

More than $10 billion in equipment for actual reactor and supporting
technologies would all come from the three other international partners,
Russia, Japan and the European Union.

Canada would not take part if ITER is located anywhere else than here,
Barnard said. So Japan and the European Union would have all the location
costs piled on top of the equipment costs.

A final decision on ITER's location is supposed to be made by next June.