There is a very special material that could be used to release significant energy without really leaving radioactive fission products with long decomposition times. This is approx, it only requires 100 years of storage. This element is thorium.

The ITER agreement was signed in November 2006 by Euratom, the US, Russia, Japan, China, South Korea and India.

China’s HL-2M tokamak fusion reactor in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, was commissioned on 4 December and achieved its first plasma discharge, according to China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).

The largest fusion device operating in the world today is a machine called JET, which is in the UK.

Launched in 2006 and based in southern France, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) had planned to test its first super-heated plasma by 2020 and achieve full fusion by 2023.

Demo will be a pre-industrial nuclear fusion reactor based on the knowledge acquired through the Joint European Tourus (JET) and ITER experiences.

The UKAEA programme hopes to design and build the world’s first compact fusion reactor by 2040.

The milestone marks the installation of the first and heaviest component of the ITER fusion machine.

“Fusion energy technology holds great potential to be a safe, clean, reliable energy source, but research and development of fusion technology is often constrained by prohibitive costs,” said Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes.

A contract for Tokamak machine assembly for the ITER International Fusion Energy Organisation signed by a consortium led by China Nuclear Power Engineering Corporation (CNPE) is the biggest nuclear energy project contract that Chinese companies have ever bid for in the European market.