Iran has announced its intention to join the research program of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor based in France, the head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran announced.
Ali Akbar Salehi also told Mehr News Agency on Wednesday that work on the technical module of the nuclear fusion project has made progress.
"In my last week's visit to Paris, we discussed the possibilities of Iran joining ITER and other members welcomed a prospective Iran membership," he added.
ITER is an international "mega project" to prepare a working prototype for fusion power and Iran, which is seen as a nuclear power, faces no restrictions on sending its scientists to join the project.
Salehi did not provide elaborate, but noted that the organization could benefit from Iran's researchers into this future technology.
About 34 countries have joined the project located in Aix-en-Provence, France, in 1985 at the Cadarache facility, a scientific research center that specializes in nuclear power research.
The ITER project aims to make the long-awaited transition from experimental studies of plasma physics to full-scale electricity-producing fusion power stations.
ITER's fusion reactor has been designed to produce 500 megawatts of output power for several seconds while needing 50 MW to operate. The machine aims to demonstrate the principle of producing more energy from the fusion process than is used to initiate it, something that has not yet been achieved in any fusion reactor.
