Summer 2009

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Feature: The day CERN was more popular than NASA

Feature: Biding time

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Event Report: The
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Event Report: When lives are on the line

Event Report: The new media officers

Event Report: Achieving global coverage

Interview: Ian Sample,
The Guardian

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Eurochat

The Swedes are here!

Vikings are on the streets in Brussels: from 1 July the Swedish government took the reins of the EU presidency and faces a testing six months. The previous presidential incumbent – the Czechs – didn’t start well by unveiling an interesting piece of satirical art at the Council building that managed to offend pretty much all Member States with one hit – something that even Italian Prime Minister, and unacknowledged performance artist, Silvio Berlusconi, hasn’t quite managed…yet.

Despite the collapse of their government halfway through, the Czech presidency managed the EU system reasonably competently – although their repeated attempts to arrange important meetings on national and European holidays didn’t always go down well with Commission officials.

The Swedes’ period in office will cover the appointment of the new Commission (with current incumbent Jose Manuel Barroso odds-on to remain as its President), the second Irish referendum on the Lisbon treaty (will the Irish get it right this time?), and will finish with the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December. With Europe suffering its worst economic recession since the 1930s it is not surprising that the Swedes’ motto is ‘Taking on the challenges’.

Swedish officials have singled out preparing for the Copenhagen climate change summit, which should thrash out the successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, as its main objective and Sweden is strongly committed to move beyond the usual Euro-rhetoric and take bold decisions.

This includes Europe acting more forcefully in the climate change negotiations and a move to go beyond the EU's emissions trading scheme, which they see as not addressing climate change rapidly or effectively; their preference would be an EU-wide CO2 tax. Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Slovenia have already implemented a levy on carbon emissions and France may introduce such a scheme by 2011. The UK is not at all keen.

A big hole in the ground

Meanwhile the biggest and most complicated energy research project in the world that could point the way towards almost limitless carbon-free energy is running into a few hiccups in the south of France.

ITER – the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor – is currently being built near Cadarache in the south of France, where visitors can see a very large hole in the ground into which the main reactor facility will be placed. ITER’s international consortium includes the US, Russia, China, India, South Korea, Japan and the EU who, together with France as the host nation, are providing the lion’s share of the funding. ITER is an ambitious research project that will prove the potential of nuclear fusion as a viable and large-scale energy resource for the future.

However, it is a very expensive business (although not quite as expensive as bailing out your average UK high-street bank of course) with a number of significant technical challenges to overcome. And considering these troubled economic times it is not the best moment for the news to leak out that the project might cost quite a bit more (perhaps double) than the previously estimated 10 billion euros.

The response is to delay aspects of the programme and possibly further downsize the main experiment so that the first experiments with real fusion fuel may not take place until 2026. This is a shame.

In my view, ITER is worth whatever it takes. It is a bold EU-led project that addresses the major challenge facing the world today. If the Swedes want to truly ‘take on the challenge’ they could do worse than suggesting that some of that EU-wide CO2 levy is funnelled directly to the project. It is one hole that is very worthwhile pouring money into.

Fingers crossed

Talking of expensive holes in the ground, don’t forget to keep those fingers and toes crossed for the restart of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in the autumn. We are informed that all has been fixed and final checks are now in progress. I doubt that James Gillies and the communications team at CERN can make quite as big a splash for the LHC as last year’s abortive start-up, but I reckon it will still be the biggest science story this autumn. Good luck.
 

A bientôt - Tim
Tim Reynolds
Inta Communication Ltd

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