EU could in theory go it alone on energy project: Brussels

BRUSSELS (AFP) Jan 13, 2004
Europe has the means to build its own version of the ITER experimental nuclear reactor project, but will abide by a choice made between a site in France and one in Japan, an EU spokesman said Tuesday.

The European Commission was responding after French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said Europe could go it alone on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, which aims to produce the clean, safe, inexhaustible energy of the future.

"We think it's scientifically and technically feasible," said Fabbio Fabbi, spokesman for EU Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin, when asked whether the EU could embark on its own ITER-type project.

"Financially, the cost is 10 billion euros, so it's not impossible but it's a significant amount of money," he said.

But Fabbi said Brussels would abide by a decision expected to be taken in mid-February on whether the ITER site should be the southeastern French town of Cadarache, chosen as the EU's bid, or the northern Japanese village of Rokkasho-mura.

The project, emulating the sun's nuclear fusion, is not expected to generate electricity before 2050.

The six ITER partners failed to choose the site at a meeting in Washington on December 20. A new meeting has been called for next month to review the results of an evaluation study currently underway.

Raffarin told reporters in Paris on Monday: "The Europeans could do it ourselves, perhaps with Canada. We are talking, the door is always open to the United States (but) there is a real determination."

Among the project's backers, the EU has won support from China and Russia to site ITER at Cadarache. Japan has the backing of South Korea and now the United States.

Last week US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham provoked consternation in the EU by saying, during a visit to Tokyo, that Japan offers "the superior site" for the project.

A Brussels-based US official acknowledged that the choice of site for the ambitious project was "fraught with political sensitivities".

But he reiterated Abraham's view that Rokkasho-mura offered the better option "based on the technical criteria".

"It would be a mistake for us not to continue international cooperation on ITER wherever the project ends up," the official added, on condition of anonymity.

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