Nuclear fusion finance plan rejected by EU Parliament

[jemb]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12007965"

Can anyone shed any light on this?
Will work on building ITER be delayed or postponed because of this wrangling?

They are talking about absolutely huge amounts of money which is maybe politically unpalatable for many european countries at the moment. The UK especially is hammering everything at the moment.

 

[NobodySpecial]

Will work on building ITER be delayed or postponed because of this wrangling?

Unlikely because that would involve renegotiating with all the overseas partners who will all want cancellation payments bigger than their contribution or some other deal to agree.

They are talking about absolutely huge amounts of money which is maybe politically unpalatable for many european countries at the moment.

Generally the costs of these projects are divided up into contracts for each country - so if the UK does cut it's contribution it will mean job cuts at whichever UK companies are supplying parts.
Generally the principle contractor in each member state is some big defence/aerospace company who has a lot of political clout and then individual parts are made by small high tech subcontractors - so if it is canceled there will be some big defence contract to replace it which will cost more.

 

[jemb]

So is it a bit of a non story in that the Eu is committed to spend the money. This story is just about whether its on this years or nexts budget?

 

[NobodySpecial]

There will probably be delays - which might be helpful given some of the technical issues - and they might lose one of the smaller foreign partners.
But it would be a bit too embarrassing to cancel and inevitably end up costing more than it would to complete it.