Science ministers of Croatia and Spain, Radovan Fuchs and Diana Morant, signed an agreement in Madrid on Wednesday green-lighting a €400 million joint project involving scientists from both countries aimed at studying materials required to build the EU's first fusion power plant.

The EU has set a goal to build its first demo fusion power plant, i.e. a facility where electric power would be produced by the fusion of hydrogen atoms, a process which releases a large amount of energy. However, as the process involves very high temperatures and radiation, the existing materials used to build regular power plants cannot be used.

Because of this, European scientists are working on studying materials needed for the plant’s construction, which is set to begin in 2035. “Croatia and Spain will work on studying materials which will be used to build future fusion reactors… It’s because the process involves high intensity radiation,” Croatia’s Science Minister, Radovan Fuchs, told state agency Hina.

The project is known as DONES (Demo Oriented Neutron Source. Croatia and Spain had agreed in 2018 to join forces to study materials together as part of the project, and a facility designed for that is planned to be built in Granada, in southern Spain. Spanish scientists will be joined by their peers from Zagreb’s Rudjer Boskovic Institute (IRB), Croatia’s premier research institution.

Fuchs said that the project costs €400 million and that Croatia would participate with €30 million, with the remaining €370 million covered by Spain. “This can open a whole range of opportunities for high tech companies (interested in) building such experimental power plants,” he said.

Fuchs was in Madrid as part of a larger delegation of Croatian officials led by Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic. Plenkovic himself met with Spanish PM, Pedro Sanchez.

“The project launches in two or three weeks. There will be intensive traffic between Granada and Zagreb,” Fuchs told Hina.

Croatia and Spain were among several EU countries who had applied to host the DONES project with the EU’s science body Fusion for Energy (F4E).

A task force from F4E looked into the proposed locations for the project – in Granada, Spain and in Croatia’s Moslavina region – and opted for Granada as it is already had a built up and unused technology park there. Croatia was hoping that the facility might be built from scratch on an empty building site, but after Granada won the project Moslavina has been designated as a backup location.

The Spanish Ministry of Science said that since 2018, when the cooperation agreement was agreed, Spain and Croatia had participated together in several other European science projects as well. “This is yet another step in science cooperation between Spain and Croatia,” said Spanish Science Minister, Diana Morant.

The facility in Granada is expected to create a total of 1,000 jobs, including 400 positions for top scientists from all over the world.