18 months of negotiation to achieve unanimity
Two decades ago, in the summer of 2005, a decades-long process was nearing its end. After many challenges the international collaboration in “controlled thermonuclear fusion” that Ronald Reagan and Mikhaïl Gorbachev had advocated for as early as 1985—later christened “ITER”—had produced a final design for the machine that would be tasked with demonstrating the feasibility of this new kind of energy. For the ITER Members, the time had come to decide on where the installation would be built.
Late in 2003, ITER Members China, the European Union, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States (India would join in December 2005) began seriously considering the question of where to site the future project. The short list was down to two names: Rokkasho-Mura, proposed by Japan—an industrial site long devoted to nuclear activities in the northernmost part of the archipelago’s central island—and Cadarache, advocated by Europe—the site of the largest energy research centre on the continent, in southern France.
For reasons that were technical as well as political, the Members were split.
From the week before Christmas 2003, when Member delegates first met in Reston in the Washington D.C. suburbs, to the summer of 2005, when they finally reached a unanimous decision in Moscow, a full year and a half of negotiations was to pass.
What was as stake was larger than just deciding on ITER’s future location. It was about demonstrating that, despite the international tensions of the moment¹, unanimity was not only possible but indispensable to the future of the project. For close to two decades, throughout the different efforts that led to the installation’s final design, the ITER scientists and engineers had always managed to reach consensus even in the most difficult circumstances. The government officials who would eventually cast their vote belonged to another world, however. Although they adhered to the unique collaborative nature of the project, they were still preoccupied par their national interests and by those of their closest allies.
The Members were evenly split and, on both sides, pressure was exerted to convince at least one Member to reconsider its choice. If successful, the gambit would have led to a 4-to-2 majority—something that works in politics but that was not desirable for ITER. As a consequence, a lot was going on behind the scenes in the sidelines of the official negotiations that sometimes found an echo in the media, significantly complicating the way to an agreement.
There were hopes that at the ministerial-level meeting in Reston, the Members would quickly reach a decision. That did not happen. “We have two excellent sites,” stated the Ministers in their communiqué. "So excellent, in fact, that we need further evaluation before making our decisions based on consensus." The ITER team was asked to “conduct a rapid exploration of the advantages of a broader approach to fusion power”—one that would include specific research installations, a satellite machine, and other projects indispensable to the long-term success of fusion energy. That idea was not new, but at this point in the negotiation process it had the effect of opening a path to a set of compensatory measures for the Member who was not chosen to host the project. Later formalized between Europe and Japan, the Broader Approach, with capital letters this time, is now at the core of global fusion research, supporting the ITER project and paving the way for the next generation of devices, DEMO.
The first months of 2004 were marked by untimely political declarations which triggered a strong response from the fusion community, who resented these counter-productive interferences. The European site was challenged because of its relative distance (~100 km) from the industrial harbour where large components would be unloaded, requiring complex logistics to deliver them to the Cadarache site. Seismicity was also the focus of attention. At one expert meeting in Vienna in February another “reunion of experts” was decided for June. The lack of progress triggered impatience, even irritation at times.
In order to overcome the gridlock, Brussels officially suggested in November 2004 that ITER could be built by Europe, China and Russia, who were all in favour of the Cadarache site. Part threat, part actual prospect, the proposal had a sobering effect. Capitalizing on long-standing personal relationships, major political figures on both sides—including up to the Head of State level—weighed in on the discussions. Janez Potočnik, the European Commissioner for Science, and Noriaki Nakayama, the Japanese Minister for Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), declared on 12 April 2005 that everything was being done to reach a decision before the G8 meeting was to be held in Scotland in July.
The deadline was met at the last minute: on 28 June 2005 in Moscow—almost exactly 18 months after the Reston meeting to the day—the six ITER Members unanimously agreed to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor on the site proposed by Europe. Japan overcame its disappointment and, in the words of Noriaki Nakayama, changed it “into joy." No one had “lost.” And no one had “won” but ITER.
¹In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York, a combined force led by the United States had invaded Iraq in March 2003.
Read the comprehensive story of the ITER site negotiations in “ITER le chemin des étoiles,” Robert Arnoux and Jean Jacquinot, Edisud, 2005 (Chapter 9, in French) and in “ITER, the Giant Fusion Reactor,” Michel Claessens, Springer 2023 (Chapter 4, in English.)