The dream of unlimited clean energy came a step closer yesterday with the signing of an international agreement to build the world’s biggest nuclear fusion reactor which aims to harness the same energy that powers the Sun. Six individual countries and the European Union agreed to spend about €10bn (£6.75bn) over the next 20 years to construct and operate the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) at Cadarache in the south of France. The agreement between the US, China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea and Russia to build Iter – which also means ‘the way’ in Latin – was signed at a ceremony at the Elysée Palace in Paris. ‘The growing shortage of resources and the battle against global warming demand a revolution in our ways of production and consumption,’ the French President, Jacques Chirac, said. ‘We have the duty to start research that will prepare energy solutions for our descendants’. The Iter reactor will take about eight years to build and is the first fusion experiment designed to produce more energy than it consumes. It is hoped that it will spawn prototype commercial reactors that could begin to come on stream within the next 30 […]