Oct. 20, 2003. 01:00 AM

Ottawa to let reactor bid die
Balking at cost of fusion experiment

Darlington proposed for $12B project

PETER CALAMAI
SCIENCE REPORTER

OTTAWAÑThe federal government is deliberately letting the clock run out on Ontario's bid to host a $12-billion experimental nuclear reactor planned by the world's leading industrial nations.

The federal stalling, confirmed by senior officials, effectively kills any chance for the province to compete next month against bids from Europe and Japan as the site for ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.

"We're just going to skulk away in the night," said a disheartened member of the ITER team.

Ottawa's inaction will be a major blow to premier-elect Dalton McGuinty, who told Prime Minister Jean ChrŽtien that his new Liberal government would match any federal financial support. Canada's share of building and operating the reactor is estimated at $2.3 billion.

But officials close to the discussions here said federal cabinet ministers fear huge cost overruns on the project, which seeks to recreate and control the nuclear furnace inside stars like the sun.

Instead of publicly rebuffing McGuinty's plea for federal financial support, sources say the federal cabinet will simply not announce any decision before a crucial Nov. 5 negotiating meeting in Beijing of the five other ITER partners Ñ the U.S., European Community, Russia, China and South Korea.

"It's very tough to attack a non-decision," said a disheartened Murray Stewart, president of the ITER Canada host team.

The federal tactics amount to a rejection of an ITER endorsement earlier this year by a blue-ribbon panel of business leaders and scientists assembled by University of Toronto president Robert Birgeneau.

"Canada cannot afford not to be part of ITER," the panel concluded.

The benefits for ITER participants would be "enormous" if fusion reactors eventually succeed in generating power, the experts said. The ITER experiment would run for 20 years after construction of the 13-storey reactor was complete in 2014 but never produce any usable electricity.

The initial 10-year construction phase of the project was supposed to pour $1.2 billion into the Ontario economy and eventually create 400 new jobs in Clarington, home to ITER's proposed site at the Darlington nuclear power station.

While Ontario backed the bid financially from the start of formal negotiations in June, 2001, Ottawa always said its endorsement depended on a promise of no cost to the federal government. But strong bids from France, Spain and Japan now mean that without federal backing, the Darlington site won't even be on the table at the crucial Nov. 5 meeting.

Ottawa and Queen's Park would have to pay the $2.3 billion even if one of the competing sites was chosen. And the bill could well be higher.

"The parties have agreed that no one will be allowed to withdraw during the construction phase without paying their full share of all the eventual costs," said Stewart.

Canada's stealth withdrawal from the ITER project is unlikely to derail a final decision on the reactor site now choreographed in meetings that culminate with an energy ministers' summit in Washington by mid-December to endorse the choice by officials. The federal inaction also leaves Canada without any toehold in the nuclear fusion field since the country's only research program was cut in 1997 in the name of deficit reduction.

Toronto Star 2003 (see also http://www.thestar.com)