World News for Students of English

04-08-2020 07:00

The world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor began its five-year assembly phase in Cadarache, a southern France.

The 23,000-ton device is built by the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), and it will replicate the reactions that power the sun. It will be the first fusion device to produce net energy, maintain fusion for long periods of time, and test technologies that are necessary for making fusion-based electricity.

The project is a joint effort of Japan, India, the EU, the US, Russia, China and South Korea, and scientists hope to demonstrate that nuclear fusion can provide a limitless source of cheap, safe and clean electricity. However, it will take until 2035, after a decade of testing and upgrades, to establish whether the reactor actually works as intended.

Difficult words: nuclear fusion (a nuclear reaction in which atoms crash with each other and they release a lot of energy), reactor (a built structure in which nuclear reactions happen), assembly (putting something together), replicate (to make an exact copy of something).

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