Nuclear fusion: power to the people?  Or just political hot air?
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That is, nuclear fusion. Unlike fission, already used to produce
most of France's electricity, fusion isn't commercial yet. Even
its most positive advocates reckon it'll be more than 25 years
before a fusion reactor could contribute usefully to the power
grid ("useful" being defined as a steady output of 1 gigawatt;
the UK has about 42 GW of installed electric plant).  But it
does have one very important advocate, and another who is coming
along for the ride, and they're both G8 leaders. The advocate:
Tony Blair. The one along for the ride: George Bush. Plus it
also involves two other G8 nations, France and Japan, directly,
as they'll get tons of money from contracts to build the next
stage in the long, long road to commercial fusion.  Last week
France was chosen as the site for the International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) project, beating
Japan's bid. If it works,