HARNESSING the enormous power released when hydrogen isotopes are fused
together looks no closer now than when it was first attempted in the late 1950s.
Hopes of building the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) to
tap that energy were badly dented in 1998 when a parsimonious US refused to sign
the ITER agreement. But then politicians are rarely lured by promises of jam
tomorrow, as this magazine has said
(14 October 2000, p 3). So I asked Helen
Liddell, when she was still energy minister (she’s now Secretary of State for
Scotland), what Britain’s policy is towards ITER.
Liddell…
