Council Of EU Plans To Allocate $6.8Bln To Build ITER Nuclear Fusion Reactor

The European Union will continue financing the ITER international project aimed at creating the first-of-a-kind experimental nuclear fusion reactor and plans to allocate some 5.6 billion euros ($6.8 billion) for this purpose over the next seven years, the Council of the EU said on Monday

BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd February, 2021) The European Union will continue financing the ITER international project aimed at creating the first-of-a-kind experimental nuclear fusion reactor and plans to allocate some 5.6 billion Euros ($6.8 billion) for this purpose over the next seven years, the Council of the EU said on Monday.

In July 2020, the EU commissioner for energy, Kadri Simson, confirmed that the bloc would further fund the project despite the financial burden of the coronavirus pandemic.

"The Council today adopted a Decision securing the continuation of the European financing of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project during the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) period 2021-2027.

The indicative European contribution to the project for the period 2021-2027 is set at 5.61 billion in current prices," the council said in a press release.

In a bid to diversify sources of energy and reduce the bloc's dependence on oil and natural gas, the EU signed in 2006 an agreement with the United States, Russia, Japan, China, South Korea and India to create the thermonuclear reactor. The project aims at proving that fusion, the process that powers the sun, can become a major carbon-free source of energy for humanity.

The reactor, which is being assembled in southern France by 35 partners, is expected to produce the first plasma in December 2025 and begin deuterium-tritium fusion experiments in 2035.