What's New

On a visit to Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory last week, US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced that US President George W. Bush had decided that the US will join the international negotiations on ITER in February in St. Petersburg. The President stated:

"I am pleased to announce that the United States will join ITER, an ambitious international research project to harness the promise of fusion energy. The results of ITER will advance the effort to produce clean, safe, renewable, and commercially-available fusion energy by the middle of this century. Commercialization of fusion has the potential to dramatically improve America's energy security while significantly reducing air pollution and emissions of greenhouse gases.

The United States will be working with the United Kingdom, other European Union nations, Russia, China, Japan and Canada on the creation of ITER. Today, I am directing the Secretary of Energy to represent the United States at the upcoming ITER meetings in St. Petersburg, Russia. We welcome the opportunity to work with our partners to make fusion energy a reality."

Secretary Abraham's speech adding that "American science leads the world.", continued:

"ITER will help answer tough questions about fusion power. It will advance both the science and technology of fusion by opening the way to a vast array of critical experiments. And it will produce industrial levels of fusion power for long durations.

So, let me commend the efforts of our allies who have been working on ITER up to this point. All of us recognize the possibilities fusion power offers to feed the energy needs of growing economies around the world.

And we know that this experiment is a crucial element in the path forward to satisfying global energy demand.

As with all important scientific undertakings, there is no guarantee of success. We will no doubt encounter roadblocks. Experiments will fail. But there is something also true about science … failure is often more fruitful than success. When you start on one path of discovery, you may end up on another more promising, more fascinating, and more rewarding road.

President Bush has faith in American science. And he knows the huge energy challenges … for the United States and for the world … that fusion science seeks to tackle."

On the US contribution to ITER, Secretary Abraham added:

But let me be clear, our decision to join ITER in no way means a lesser role for the fusion programs we undertake here at home. It is imperative that we maintain and enhance our strong domestic research program - at Princeton, at the universities and at our other labs. Critical science needs to be done in the U.S., in parallel with ITER, to strengthen our competitive position in fusion technology."

A US DOE press release accompanying Secretary Abraham's speech went further, indicating that "The nature and details of the U.S. participation and contributions would be determined during the negotiations." and that "The U.S. share of the construction cost is expected to be about 10 percent of the total.", the minimum required for full ITER participation.

Previous versions of this "What's New" page are also available:

Further information on the proposed sites can be found below:

As always, regular reports on the progress of ITER are given in the IAEA ITER Newsletter.

Further general news about fusion (with a US emphasis).

updated February 3rd, 2003