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Copyright © 1999, by the Middle East Data Project, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Islamic Republic is seeking to by a Tokamak nuclear fusion reactor from Canada, despite diplomatic efforts by the United States to block the sale and objections from a nuclear industry watchdog group that it could enhance Iran's nuclear weapons program.
The $50 million Tokamak reactor is the primary asset of the Canadian Centre for Fusion Magnetics (CCFM), a publicly-funded research facility in Montreal that is being closed down by the Canadian government. Despite efforts spanning more than thirty years, led initially by the Soviet Union which pioneered the Tokamak reactors, no researchers have been able to produce a commercially-viable fusion reactor, which is still believed to be thirty years and tens of billions of dollars away.
Tokamak reactors are designed to demonstrate the principles of a controlled fusion reaction by heating plasma contained within doughnut-shaped electromagnetic fields. As the plasma heats, the gas breaks down, separating electrons from the nuclei. Some of these collide, creating fusion, and in the process giving off energy. Until now, experts say, they have succeeded only in producing short bursts of power, which generally consume far more energy to generate than they give off. If the reaction is difficult to get going, says CCFM director Dr. Real Decoste, researchers know it can work. "The sun and the stars use the same process," he says, "so we have living proof in the universe that it works."
So why would Iran be interested in such a technology, if it has no immediate application and will require billions of dollars and international cooperation to develop commercially? That question is what troubles U.S. government officials tracking Iran's clandestine efforts to acquire nuclear weapons technology....
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