The European Parliament has rejected a last-ditch plan to rescue financing for a nuclear fusion reactor project, officials say.
EU member states had wanted to reallocate $1.8 billion from the existing Brussels budget to cover a shortfall in building costs in 2012-13 for the Iter fusion reactor under construction in France, which will attempt to create energy by using the same nuclear processes that power the sun, the BBC reported Thursday.
"We had the green light of the Council of Ministers, but the Parliament did not follow," Michel Claessens, a spokeman for the directorate-general of research at the European Commission, said.
Under a plan agreed to by member states in July, the EU was to have met a critical shortfall in Iter financing using unspent funds and research funds from it 2010 budget, but the Parliament refused and has closed out the 2010 budget. The financing plan will have to be revised if and when a new proposal is introduced next year, officials said.
The original plan for Iter, which began construction in 2008, called for completion of the reactor within 10 years at a budget of $6.6 billion. Many experts say the final cost will be in the region of $19 billion.
Europe is responsible for 45 percent of the total cost, which the European Commission says will amount to $8.7 billion.
The six other partners in the Iter project — China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States — are each contributing 9 percent of the final cost.
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