Russia's Putin gives ITER scientists Global Energy prize

ST. PETERSBURG, June 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday awarded three researchers the prestigious Global Energy prize for their work on an experimental nuclear fusion reactor.

Japan's Masaji Yoshikawa, France's Robert Aimar and Russian Academician Yevgeny Velikhov won the prize for developing scientific and technical foundations for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project.

The project to build an experimental fusion reactor - expected to produce clean and safe energy by 2016 for 20 years - in Caradache in southern France is worth at least $12 billion.

The idea of ITER began when the Soviet Union suggested that the four most advanced nuclear nations - the U.S.S.R., the U.S., Europe and Japan - create a "tokamak" reactor, a doughnut-shaped chamber to confine in a magnetic field incandescent plasma that no material can withstand. Thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium then proceeds in the plasma.

Established in 2002 on Russia's initiative, the international prize has been granted for outstanding theoretical, experimental and applied research, development, inventions and discoveries in the field of energy development and power generation.

In 2006, the prize is worth $1.1 million and will be shared among the scientists.