Consider this to be the mother of all gadgets. Costing an estimated 10 billion euros to build the ITER experimental fusion reactor will be the second most expensive scientific collaboration of all time after the international space station.

The cost of ITER is currently being shared by the US, Japan, China, Russia and others with the European Union picking up almost half the tab.

If all goes well officials predict a demonstration power plant could be up and running there as soon as 2040.

As we get more and more gadget dependent I don’t see the world’s demand for energy dropping off anytime soon and given that one kilogram of fusion fuel would produce the same amount of energy as 10,000,000 kg of fossil fuel Fusion reactors are probably a decent alternative.

Source: ITER