The government plans to host a data analysis center and a remote control center for the world's first nuclear fusion reactor, which is to be built in France, government officials said Thursday.
The village of Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, is the candidate site for the two facilities related to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project. Senior science and technology ministry officials will soon visit the prefecture to explain the plan to local government officials, the officials said.
On Tuesday, France won the bid to build the ITER plant in Cadarache after Tokyo abandoned its attempt to build it in Rokkasho in exchange for preferential arrangements under which Japan will build related facilities.
The European Union will shoulder half of the construction costs under a Japan-EU agreement.
Aomori Gov. Shingo Mimura has shown willingness to host the facilities.
Four ITER-related facilities, including the data analysis and remote control centers, will be built for the project, and Britain has expressed interest in hosting one of the facilities.
The ITER plant is an experimental facility that aims to mimic the way the sun produces energy and to explore a new, inexhaustible source of energy. Thermonuclear fusion reactions would be produced by fusing the nuclei of heavy hydrogen and tritium at temperatures of more than 100 million.