As a result of the oil crisis three decades ago, the present generation of large fusion devices, such as the Joint European Torus (JET), the EU-funded machine located at Culham in Oxfordshire, UK, was established to move fusion from small laboratory experiments up to significant power output levels. JET can now produce many megawatts of fusion power in pulses routinely lasting many seconds and up to a minute. The next generation of fusion machines was expected to be constructed in the 1990s, and to be on the power plant scale, producing hundreds of megawatts of fusion power, but the construction of this new generation was prevented by the cuts in energy R&D funding that occurred in the 1990s. The post-oil crisis wave of R&D funding, followed by a progressive decline, which shows UK public-sector funding for fusion, renewables and energy efficiency. Only now is construction beginning of a fusion machine of this scale. The new reactor, called ITER, is being built in the south of France, as an international venture.