The world’s biggest fusion-energy experiment is planning a reboot without one of its most important members, after the UK announced funding for a rival project trying to replicate the sun’s energy on Earth.
ITER was originally scheduled to cost about $5 billion and begin testing in 2020. The budget has ballooned past $22 billion, with no date set for trials. The dizzyingly complex machine being built in southern France pieces together more than a million parts sourced from around the world, with even the slightest anomalies causing months or years of delay.
While those ITER tenders will no longer be available to UK companies, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government is pressing ahead with fusion technology.