The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is a 35-country project in southern France to make nuclear fusion a viable source of clean energy. Its director-general is Pietro Barabaschi, who says "people leave their passports behind once they enter the facility."
Each member contributes "in-kind" support—parts and brains rather than cash. Russia makes chunks of the magnets used to confine the reaction, exhaust systems that keep it clean and panels that absorb the high-energy neutrons released by fusion. The magnets are split among Russia, the EU, America, Japan, China and South Korea. Russia, Japan and Europe share the exhaust system; India and America the cooling. No member's offering is indispensable, but finding replacements can cause delays.
The project is already a boondoggle. It was once slated for completion in 2016 with first experiments by 2020. Full operation is now not expected until 2039. Costs have ballooned from $18bn to $32.4bn in 2023 dollars, according to America's Congressional Research Service. Each country insisted on making critical components, causing a sub-optimal division of manufacturing. Russia's invasion of Ukraine added more paperwork to an already gummed-up machine.
ITER will not produce its first plasma before 2033, well behind Commonwealth Fusion Systems, an American startup that expects to get there by 2027. Europe's commercial fusion activity lags behind private ventures, says Anda Bologa of the Centre for European Policy Analysis; its fusion bets are mostly tied to ITER. Should private ventures deliver first, ITER may become a multilateral relic.
Four years into Russia's war with Ukraine, nearly all ties between Russian and European science have been severed—Russian scientists were expelled from CERN, a joint Mars rover sits in limbo, and data-sharing in the Barents Sea has been halted—but at ITER Russian and European physicists, engineers and managers still work together.
Remember, even if you win the rat race -- you're still a rat.