FPN07-48

Commercial Fusion by 2040 Says Korean President

September 14, 2007

Korea will grow into one of the world's top five countries in nuclear fusion energy technology by 2021 and start commercial generation of electricity from nuclear fusion by 2040 said South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, according to a September 14 news report in the Korean independent newspaper The Hankyoreh. Roh's remarks came at a dedication ceremony for the newly completed US$330 million KSTAR superconducting tokamak.

Initiation of the KSTAR was in 1995, the same year that Congress killed a similar project, the Tokamak Physics Experiment (TPX), that was just beginning construction in the U. S. TPX scientists and engineers subsequently assisted Korea in the design and planning for KSTAR. The facility is located at the Korean National Fusion Research Institute in Daejon.

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