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Japanese Hope to Build Nuclear Fusion Plant

Posted on: Friday, 19 December 2003, 06:00 CST

By KENJI HALL

TOKYO (AP) - Japan is confident it can win approval from an international consortium to build the world's first large-scale nuclear fusion plant, an experimental project that would generate energy by reproducing the sun's power source, an official said Friday.

Japan and France are the finalists in a bidding war for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project, which is expected to cost $12 billion over 35 years. The project's sponsors - the European Union, the United States, Russia, South Korea, China, Japan and Canada - are set to reach a final decision on Saturday at a meeting in Washington.

Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry official Hidekazu Tanaka said he believes Japan's site, Rokkasho village on the main island's northern tip, has the edge going into the weekend vote.

"We are fairly certain we won't lose," Tanaka told The Associated Press. "For a resource-poor country like Japan, the benefits of such a project would be huge."

The ITER project, first proposed more than a decade ago, is designed to study the potential of fusion power as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, such as coal and oil. Fossil fuels are expected to run short in about 50 years.

Fusion, which powers the sun and stars, involves colliding tiny atoms at extremely high temperatures and pressure inside a reactor. When the atoms fuse into a plasma they release energy that can be harnessed to generate electricity.

Fusion power produces no greenhouse gas emissions and only low levels of radioactive waste. The reactor would run on an isotope of hydrogen, an abundant source of fuel that can be extracted from water.

And because fusion reactors don't consume uranium or plutonium - the fuel of conventional, fission reactors - and don't use an atomic chain reaction, there is little risk of a radioactive meltdown.

Scientists say it's also nearly impossible to package the reactor's contents into a weapon.

"You can't build a bomb from this kind of reactor," said Masaaki Inutake, a professor of fusion research at Tohoku University in Sendai, north of Tokyo.

The stakes are high because the project means jobs, government subsidies and prestige.

Tokyo faces stiff competition from France's bid to promote its proposed site - the southeastern town of Cadarache, which has considerable EU backing.

There are also some concerns about earthquakes in Japan that could affect the reactor.

With an international research team expected to live near the reactor, Rokkasho's frigid, snowy winters also make it less appealing than Cacarache, which has a temperate climate and is in France's southern Provence region.

But Japan is hoping Rokkasho's location near the sea will sway the debate.

Tanaka, the ministry official, said Rokkasho is 3 miles from a major port, meaning that sea water can be pumped for fuel and that heavy-duty reactor parts, such as a massive superconducting magnetic coil, can be transported by ship in one piece. France's site, about 43 miles inland, would need the coil to be shipped in pieces and assembled later.

Rokkasho already has an industrial complex, including a nuclear fuel disposal and reprocessing plant scheduled to be finished in 2006.

Even if Tokyo manages to secure the deal, it may have to persuade a wary public, following a recent spate of accidents and cover-ups of lax safety practices at nuclear power plants.

Japan relies on nuclear power for 30 percent of its energy. But many communities have resisted plans to build more plants since Japan's worst nuclear accident in 1999. That accident, at a fuel-reprocessing plant north of Tokyo, was caused by an uncontrolled reaction that killed two workers and exposed at least 600 people to radiation.

"We will have to do lots of PR to reassure the public," said Tanaka.

The project won't be cheap, either.

With Japan's economy struggling through a long-running slowdown and public debt at historic highs, the government will have to dig deep to fund the $5.3 billion cost of construction over 10 years and another $6.4 billion for the reactor's equipment and day-to-day operations for 25 years after building is completed.

It will also have to pay for the electricity to power the reactor. Once the reactor is running, it should generate some 20 times the energy required to get it started.

But Inutake, the fusion researcher, said the technology hasn't yet been refined to the point where it will run at a self-sustaining burn.

"Attaining that would be a milestone," he said. "Before building an economical reactor, we need to confirm that we can do it in an experiment. That's why this is so important."

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International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project

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