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Science &Technology

Fusion power

Next ITERation?

Generating electricity by nuclear fusion has long looked like a chimera. Areactor being built in Germany may change that

AS THE old joke has it, fusion is the power of the future—and always will be. The sales pitch isirresistible: the principal fuel, a heavy isotope of hydrogen called deuterium, can be extracted fromwater. In effect, therefore, it is in limitless supply. Nor, unlike fusion’s cousin, nuclear fission, doesthe process produce much in the way of radioactive waste. It does not release carbon dioxide, either.Which all sounds too good to be true. And it is. For there is the little matter of building a reactor thatcan run for long enough to turn out a meaningful amount of electricity. Since the first attempt to do so,a machine called Zeta that was constructed in Britain in the 1950s, no one has even come close.

At the moment, the main bet being placed by fusion enthusiasts is on ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, a research machine that can hold 840 cubic metres of hot, gaseous fuel. It is being bolted together at a projected cost of