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For about six months of the year, bursts of a hot, electrically charged gas, or plasma, swirl around a donut-shaped tube in a special MIT reactor, helping scientists learn more about a potential future energy source: nuclear fusion.During downtimes when the reactor is offline, as it is right now, engineers make upgrades that will help them achieve their goal of making fusion a viable energy source--a long-standing mission that will likely continue for decades. MIT's reactor, known as Alcator...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union agreed on Friday to include India in a 10-billion-euro project to build an experimental nuclear fusion reactor that in the long-run could provide virtually unlimited, cheap and clean energy. The EU's willingness to work with India on a civil nuclear project comes months after the United States said it would support India's nuclear power development despite its refusal to sign a global treaty barring the spread of atomic weapons. That move was...

By Guy Faulconbridge MOSCOW (Reuters) - France is to host the world's firstnuclear fusion reactor, the project's multinational partnersagreed on Tuesday, bringing closer a technology backers saycould one day provide the world with endless cheap energy. France beat off a rival bid from Japan to host the10-billion-euro ($12.18 billion) experimental reactor atCadarache in the south of the country, according to anagreement signed by the partners after a meeting in Moscow. The ITER (International...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - France won its bid to build a10-billion-euro ($12.18 billion) experimental nuclear fusionreactor after more than a year of wrangling with Japan, theproject's multinational partners said on Tuesday. Ministers from the partner countries signed an agreement ata meeting in Moscow making France the site for the ITERreactor, European Union spokeswoman Antonia Mochan toldReuters. The ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor)project is backed by China, the EU, Japan,...

By Guy Faulconbridge MOSCOW (Reuters) - Science's quest to find a cheap andinexhaustible way to meet global energy needs took a major stepforward on Tuesday when a 30-nation consortium chose France tohost the world's first nuclear fusion reactor. After months of wrangling, France defeated a bid from Japanand signed a deal to site the 10-billion-euro ($12.18-billion)experimental reactor in Cadarache, near Marseille. The project will seek to turn seawater into fuel bymimicking the way the sun...

By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - If scientists succeed in building anexperimental nuclear fusion reactor and making it work it couldsolve the world's energy problems for the next 1,000 years ormore, a leading scientist said on Tuesday. After months of wrangling, France defeated a bid from Japanand signed a deal to build the 10-billion-euro ($12 billion)experimental reactor at Cadarache in the south of the country. Ian Fells, of the Royal Academy of Engineering in Britainand an expert on...

LONDON -- If scientists succeed in building an experimental nuclear fusion reactor and making it work it could solve the world's energy problems for the next 1,000 years or more, a leading scientist said on Tuesday. After months of wrangling, France defeated a bid from Japan and signed a deal to build the 10-billion-euro ($12 billion) experimental reactor at Cadarache in the south of the country. Ian Fells, of the Royal Academy of Engineering in Britain and an expert on energy conversion,...

Half-ton levitating ring is key to workCAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- MIT and Columbia University students and researchers have begun operation of a novel experiment that confines high-temperature ionized gas, called plasma, using the strong magnetic fields from a half-ton superconducting ring inside a huge vessel reminiscent of a spaceship. The experiment, the first of its kind, will test whether nature's way of confining high-temperature gas might lead to a new source of energy for the world. First...