France will be the site of the world’s first large-scale, sustainable nuclear fusion reactor, an estimated $10-billion project that many scientists see as crucial to solving the world’s future energy needs.

It is a great success for France, for Europe and for all the partners in ITER, President Jacques Chirac said in a statement released after the six-member consortium of the United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and the European Union chose the country as the site for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.
Japan, which had lobbied hard for the project, dropped out of the bidding in the last few days and ceded to France. The consortium agreed in Moscow to build the project at Cadarache in southern France, said a New York Times report.
Nuclear fusion is the process by which atomic nuclei are forced together, releasing huge amounts of energy, as with the sun or a hydrogen bomb. The process has long been studied as a potential energy source that would be far cleaner than burning fossil fuels or even nuclear fission, which is used in nuclear reactors today but produces dangerous radioactive waste.
While the physics of nuclear fusion have long been understood, the engineering required to control the process remains difficult.
The first reactor is only a demonstration plant meant to prove that fusion can be harnessed as an econo-mically viable energy source. A second reactor, to be built in Japan, would probably be a prototype meant for commercial power generation.
The work on the reactor is likely to begin next year. Current plans foresee the reactor operating in 2016.
Construction of the reactor is estimated to cost $5 billion, with its operation costing another estimated $5 billion over 20 years, according to ITER.