South Korea, Japan to Conduct Nuclear Fusion Studies

Dec 18 - BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

South Korea and Japan plan to embark on joint study of nuclear fusion energy by using the Korean nuclear fusion research facility, the government said Thursday.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said the two countries will hold talks on Friday in Daejeon, a city 164 kilometres south of Seoul, to discuss bilateral cooperation in the nuclear fusion energy sector.

South Korea completed the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR), a Korean nuclear fusion energy device, last year, which started generating plasma in June with preparations underway to begin earnest scientific experiments next year.

The ministry said the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has proposed to dismantle a hightech analysis equipment previously attached to its JT-60 Tokamak unit and use it to test KSTAR. The JT- 60 is the process of being disassembled to be replaced by an updated JT-60SA model.

"The equipment will be sent over free of charge with Japanese researchers allowed to work side by side with local counterparts," an official said.

He said joint work can cut costs and help forge closer ties between the two member countries of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project.

South Korea and Japan along with the European Union (EU), the United States, Japan, Russia, China and India are ITER members that aim to build a operable fusion power testbed by 2016, followed by 20 years of actual experiments to check the feasibility the technology.

Once this process is underway a demonstration plant that can actually generate power is to be set up in the 2040s.

Nuclear fusion causes naturally abundant deuterium and tritium to release helium and neutron particles that effectively allows the creation of a artificial sun on Earth. This can then be harnessed to make limitless energy.

Originally published by Yonhap news agency, Seoul, in English 0523 18 Dec 08.