France Targets Greenhouse Gas, Nuclear Plan to Help
Date: 01-Jul-05
Country: FRANCE
France was picked on Tuesday to build the world's first nuclear fusion reactor in the southern town of Cadarache, about 70 Km (45 miles) from Marseille. Backers of the project said it could one day provide the world with endless cheap energy.
But environmentalists have criticized France for hosting the reactor, calling it a waste of money and resources that could be better used to cut greenhouse gases.
"Given the greenhouse effect, our battle is to stabilise emissions between now and the end of 2012 and to cut them by a quarter between now and 2050," Chirac said at a visit to the site of the future nuclear reactor.
The experimental reactor has a price tag of 10 billion euros ($12.18 billion).
"The aim is one day to be able to develop an abundant energy source for humanity, an energy source that doesn't damage the climate," he said.
Environmental campaigners Greenpeace said it was a "ridiculous" project and the Sortir du Nucleaire grouping of 718 anti-nuclear groups, called it a "financial black hole".
The ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) project seeks to mimic the way the sun produces energy, potentially providing an inexhaustible source of low-cost energy using seawater as fuel.
It will create 1,000 research jobs and a further 3,000 jobs indirectly related to the project, which involves fusing rather than splitting atoms to release energy.
Chirac praised France's nuclear energy programme as a "major asset".
France has been a big producer of nuclear energy since the oil shocks of the 1970s and has 58 nuclear reactors, more than any country in the world except the United States.
France beat off a rival bid from Japan to host the reactor.
The ITER project is backed by China, the European Union, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.
