In hunt for energy, the sun is a model

PARIS -- Physicists have dreamt about it for decades: harnessing the fusion process that powers the sun to make clean, safe, and limitless energy. A multinational pact signed yesterday may bring that dream a step closer to reality.

Seven partners representing half the world's population have agreed to build an experimental fusion reactor in southern France that could revolutionize global energy use for future generations.

Yet it is also just an experiment -- a bold, long-awaited $12.8 billion experiment -- and it will be decades before scientists are even sure it works.

The ITER project by the United States, the European Union, China, India, Russia, Japan, and South Korea will attempt to combat global warming by offering an alternative to fossil fuels. Controlling climate change and finding new energy sources are urgent goals.

"Worldwide demand for energy is expected to double in the next 25 years, and we need to diversify our energy supply," said US Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman, during a tour yesterday of Princeton University's Plasma Physics Lab.

Experiments on two reactors at the Princeton lab -- one in use since 1999 and the other under construction -- will be crucial in helping scientists determine how to translate research at the ITER facility into a design for commercial fusion reactors, Bodman said.

President Jacques Chirac of France praised yesterday's agreement as a victory for humanity -- and for France, which widely exports its nuclear energy expertise and beat out Japan in the bidding to host the reactor.

Officials involved in the project say 10 percent to 20 percent of the world's energy could come from fusion by the end of the century.