While Texas is mired in a controversy over building old-
fashioned polluting coal-burning power plants, the rest of the
world is looking to the future. Today, representatives from the
European Union, China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the
United States are meeting in Paris to sign an agreement to
jointly build the world's first nuclear fusion reactor. Instead
of splitting the atom to create energy, as today's nuclear power
plants do, the new reactor [dubbed ITER for International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor] will fuse atoms to create
energy, much the same as our sun does. The reactor would provide
a clean and limitless supply of energy, and would only require a
tiny amount of fuel. Scientists say the energy released from a
fusion reaction is 10 million times greater than that released
from burning coal. The fusion reactor is to be built in
Cadarache, France. The construction will begin in 2007 and is
expected to be completed in 2017. It is expected to have a life-
span of 40 years. It will cost