A blast of hot air has again blown over talks to secure the location of the world's first continuous nuclear fusion power reactor. According to the Daily Telegraph, the Japanese are threatening to lodge a formal protest against the French government after reports last week that Japan had agreed to abandon it's bid to have the reactor built in Japan.

Fusion research is considered worth pursuing because it promises to be a widely available energy source with essentially unlimited supply and highly manageable environmental impact.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) will operate by nuclear fusion, rather than fission as existing reactors do. Using sea water to create energy, it has been touted as an environmentally clean solution to the world's energy problems. But 50 years of research have so far failed to produce a commercially viable fusion reactor, although latterly, experimental units in the UK have produced enormous amounts of electricity for short periods of time. The ITER project will be the world's first continuous producer of fusion energy and will generate 500MW of power. ITER is Latin for 'the way'.

In what will be a highly lucrative project, Japan and France have wrangled for years over who will host the high-profile and lucrative project.

The six partners involved in the project are divided in support for competing bids from Japan and France to host the site of the reactor project. The partners are the EU, Japan, China, the United States, Russia and South Korea.

The Japanese media has reported that Tokyo is holding out for a guaranteed 20% share of the construction contracts. Other reports say Japan is only prepared to pay 10% of the project costs.

Last week it was reported that Japan would abandon its bid to have the reactor built in Japan against promises of a large slice of the £7billion construction work. None other than French president Jacques Chirac himself claimed that France had won the bid to build the reactor said a Japanese newspaper last week.

But now Japan has angrily denied the claim saying there was no truth in it. The project has already been delayed by the wrangling and the EU says construction must begin by the end of the year if the 2015 deadline for operation is to be met. Both sides had previously agreed a July deadline for the decision.

More details on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor may be found at www.iter.org