MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil determined to join the exclusive nuclear fusion club

Brazil is determined to join the world's exclusive club of nuclear research and is willing to contribute with a billion US dollars to participate in the ambitious International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ITER project in France.

According to the well informed Estado de Sao Paulo, Brazil is currently negotiating a nuclear cooperation agreement with the European Community which should enable scientific and development research exchange with one of the world's leading groups in the field. The agreement hopefully is scheduled to be signed some time next October. "The agreement with the EU opens the way for an even more ambitious Brazilian project which is the integration to the ITER project", said Odair Dias head of the country's National Committee on Nuclear Energy. Brazil refers to the ITER project as an "exclusive club" undertaking made up of representatives from the European Union, Russia, China, India, Japan and South Korea and is hopeful the EU will give Brazil its support. The Brazilian government has said it is willing to contribute with a billion US dollars to be part of the project which, in 2014, will mount in Cadarache, France, a reactor to experiment with nuclear fusion and its possible uses for the generation of electricity. ITER member countries, which are linked to the International Atomic Energy Agency, have a right to make use, without paying royalties of the possible discoveries obtained from the experimental reactor. Last week Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said Brazil is planning to build 60 atomic energy plants in the next sixty years, and that in coming months work in the Angra III plant, frozen since the eighties, will resume.