THE dream of tapping the enormous power released when hydrogen isotopes fuse
together never seems to get any closer. Ever since research into nuclear fusion
began fifty years ago, the promise of endless energy has always been “decades
away”. Now physicists say the very earliest a power-producing reactor could be
built is 2050.
The lure of jam tomorrow was never going to convince politicians for long,
especially when research worldwide swallows up 1.4 billion euros a year
(£840 million) of taxpayers’ money. Small wonder then that since 1998,
plans to build the vast International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)
have come…
