SAINT PETERSBURG, RUSSIA:  In southern France, more than 20 billion dollars are being spent on trying to make a first-of-its-kind nuclear reactor, a special steel cauldron where top scientists from countries including India hope to generate clean nuclear energy by fusing atoms, a process similar to what happens on the sun.

This is till date world’s largest scientific project ever to be undertaken. The reactor will weigh about 23,000 tons – as much as three Eiffel Towers. Some 80,000 kilometres of special super conducting wires will be used.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) brings together India, China, South Korea, USA, Japan, Russia and the European Union  as scientists see if they can jointly harness the power of the Sun by literally confining it in a steel bottle. The head of ITER, Dr. Osamu Motojima, points out that together these entities “represent half the world’s population and account for two-third of the global economic might.”

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