ITER: A Thermonuclear Reactor That Scientists Will Tidy Up When It's Done

Yesterday I toured the site of ITER, the nuclear fusion plant under construction near Cadarache, France. A multinational collaboration is pumping 150 billion Euros into this experimental fusion reactor, which aims to create 500 mega-watts of power, for every 50 that are pumped into.
ITER, which sort of means International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor but is actually just a nice, trans-national word, is an enormous project spanning generations. First conceived in the 1980s, the idea is to create mostly clean, virtually limitless energy through the process of fusing Hydrogen atoms together. This is a process we see at work in the universe in stars and it seems technologically feasible that with a lot of work we can reproduce the conditions on Earth and set ourselves free of not only a limited fossil fuel supply, but also of the cost of using those fuels long term (i.e. climate change).
ITER grew as a collaboration during the 1990s and the decision to locate the experimental plant in France was made early in this century. Europe currently funds the bulk of the project (45%) with Russia, Japan, Korea, the USA, China and India all participating in other major roles, currently they are building many ...