ITER Organization

PDF for printing Archive Search ITER home Subscribe Contact

25 August 2008 - #46

Ansel Adams' greatest passions: wilderness preservation and fusion energy

No one better than Californian photographer Ansel Adams (1902-1984) has captured the majesty and grandeur of the American landscape. Using a meticulous darkroom technique known as "zone printing", his vision magnified the humble and the grandiose alike, a full moon rising over a Mexican village or a clearing winter storm over Yosemite National Park.

Ansel Adams took this picture of Dr Charles Damm, peering out of the central coil of the ALICE fusion installation,
at Livermore Laboratories in 1966.

Adam's relation to nature was both aesthetic and mystical. Throughout his life he worked and lobbied to preserve the wilderness and the great vistas of the American West. His book on The John Muir Trail was instrumental in the creation of Kings Canyon National Park in1940.

One of Adam's lesser known passions was fusion energy. In Autumn 1966, he had been commissioned by Livermore National Laboratories to photograph various machines and installations, among them "ALICE" (Adiabatic Low-energy Injection and Confinement Experiment), a "mirror machine" which was expected to demonstrate "scientific feasibility" by the end of the decade...

The Livermore commission was Adam's first exposure to fusion energy. Later in life, he became one of its most ardent advocates. In "Ansel Adams, an autobiography", published posthumously in 1984, the photographer tells of his June 1983 meeting with fellow Californian Ronald Reagan, whose environmental policies he had been criticizing sharply for years. "I suggested he take $ 10 billion from his defense program and apply it to a crash program for magnetic fusion development. Reagan raised an eyebrow at my temerity, but I believe it is obvious that, once fusion power is achieved, the energy shortage will be past."

Two and a half years later, on November 19, 1985, President Reagan was meeting Secretary General Gorbachev in Geneva, laying the political foundations of what was to become the ITER project. Maybe, on that occasion, the US president remembered the words of the bearded 82-year-old photographer-conservationist who had caused his eyebrow to rise. Adams had died the year before, convinced, as he expressed in his last interview to a San Francisco magazine, that fusion "wasn't that far down the road", that is, "only as far as our leaders want to make it."

-Robert Arnoux

Workshop on Value Engineering

On 2 and 3 September, the ITER Civil Construction (CCS) Department is organizing a workshop on Value Engineering. The meeting will take place in the Aquabella Hotel in Aix-en-Provence. Value engineering is a formal process whereby functional requirements and traditional construction methods are challenged in order to come up with overall cost or schedule savings for the project.

Please contact Timothy Watson for further details.

ITER on Russian TV

The Russian Media "Russia Today" has published a TV programme on the ITER project.

Click here to watch it...

Original soundtrack of ITER Summer Party now available

The original soundtrack of ITER Summer Party is now available and can be downloaded here...

On the road to ITER

The works for the ITER itinerary are progressing. In order to enable the convoys delivering the big ITER parts to Cadarache (the convoys can reach lengths of up to 61 meters), the roundabouts near the CEA main entrance and in front of the Chantier RES on the road towards Vinon-sur-Verdon have been adapted. First convoys with dummy loads will test the ITER itinerary in 2009.

In front of the Chantier RES in Cadarache, the roundabout has been flattened and reinforced allowing the convoys to pass.

More information (in French)...

Postdoctoral Position at University of Liverpool

The University of Liverpool, Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, is offering a postdoctoral position. The candidate will work in the Technological Plasma Group in the area of advanced plasma diagnostic measurements on pulsed discharges used for the deposition of thin films.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.liv.ac.uk/working/job_vacancies/

Classe a theme:
Speaking on the phone

Friday, August 29
11 am — 12 noon
Building 521, Room 104

Dr Masaji Yoshikawa, former president of the Japanese Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI), with Hiroshi Matsumoto (ITER) and Jean-Michel Bottereau (AIF), in front of the new ITER mock-up during his visit to Cadarache on 22 August.

1-12 September, 2008
2nd Karlsruhe International Summer School on Fusion Technologies
Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Germany

1 - 4 September, 2008
13th EU-US TTF Workshop
Copenhagen, Denmark

8 - 12 September, 2008
International Congress on Plasma Physics
Fukuoka, Japan

10 - 12 September, 2008
1st International Conference on Negative Ions, Beams and Sources
Aix-en-Provence, France

15 - 19 September, 2008
Twenty-Fifth Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT 2008)
Rostock, Germany

28 September - 2 October, 2008
ANS Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE2008)
San Francisco, USA

13 - 18 October, 2008
22nd IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, 50th Anniversary of Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research
Geneva, Switzerland

The ITER Newsline is produced by Sabina Griffith. Suggestions for future articles, comments and corrections, as well as items for the calendar are welcome, and can be sent to sabina.griffith@iter.org.

Building up team spirit

Dhiraj Bora

Team spirit is extremely important for an effective and coherent team. In an international environment like ITER, this is especially true and therefore the CODAC team (with members from four parties) recently met for a one-day out-of-office brainstorming session. The idea was to interact freely and closely and by this to forge a team.

It was a lively meeting with fruitful discussions on CODAC related design issues. In this meeting it became obvious that the various tasks and interfaces our department is charged with require more effort and teamwork. Especially as we are now entering the engineering design phase. But with more new staff members joining us soon, we hope to grow in strength and thus to be able to deliver goods in time.

At the same time, as the activities increase all round the globe, the need for a better and more efficient mode of communicating among all ITER members became very obvious. This is thus one of the most significant objectives to be achieved in the IT division in 2008. We have already implemented an integrated desktop communication system from Microsoft which covers desktop audio and video conferencing, screen and application sharing, as well as instant messaging. We hope that this will greatly improve the day to day needs of the ITER Organization, the Domestic Agencies and their collaborators for an efficient communication around the globe.

-Dhiraj Bora,
ITER Deputy Director General for CODAC & IT,
Current Drive and Heating & Diagnostics.

A family affair

Toshiyuki Ide

To say that Toshiyuki Ide was in the nuclear business before he could walk may be an overstatement, but it is no exaggeration to state that it runs in the family. Toshi's father, who was a government official in the nuclear field, certainly transmitted his knowledge and passion for that field to his son. So after Toshi, who is Senior Administrator at the ITER Finance Division, finished his studies in Macroeconomics in 1981, it was no surprise that he would join the JAEA (Japan Atomic Energy Agency).

And his encounter with nuclear fusion was almost immediate. His first assignment was in project management of JT 60, the Japanese tokamak, which at that time was being built. When he changed assignments after almost 3 years, to work as a member of the project management team of the nuclear ship project in 1983, he also got a new boss... a certain Mr Kaname Ikeda... a small world indeed.

In 1989, when ITER was in the engineering design phase, Toshi joined the project and was at that time involved in the negotiations to get it to Japan. When the decision was taken to split up into three sites, Naka in Japan, Garching in Germany and San Diego in the US, he was part of the team responsible for accommodation, housing and schooling of the new arrivals and their families. This understanding of the ins and outs of relocating people came in handy when, after various other assignments with the JAEA, one of which in Vienna, he was offered a position with ITER in Cadarache in 2006. "I have always been an advocate of Cadarache as the ideal host of the ITER project," says Toshi, "and getting the chance to go and see for myself was a great opportunity. Having been here for more than two years now, what strikes me most is the exponential growth of the organization. Making sure our infrastructure, systems and administrative processes keep pace with this growth is probably the biggest current challenge in terms of management". In his current position within ITER, Toshi is part of the team that is making the implementation of SAP happen. He is also responsible for some of the financial reporting.

-Iris Rona

"Narrow-minded" energy research

"The five billion euro investment into the ITER project seem to be an economically justifiable investment into our future", writes the German magazine Der Spiegel in its series about future energies. Due to rising oil prices households in Germany had to spend 22,4 billion Euros more in the first half year of 2008 than the year before. It therefore seems "narrow-minded" that fusion research institutes in Germany have to fight for every Euro, says the magazine.

For more info, visit
http://wissen.spiegel.de/wissen/image/show.html

ITERfan.org Opens Club Forum!

http://forums.iterfan.org/

ITER on the Radio

If you are interested in the progress of the ITER project, then listen to Radio Verdon on 96.5. The local Radio Station has set up a special 7 minute programme "des Nouvelles d'ITER''. The programme is broadcast every Friday at 17h on Radio Verdon, in French and English. You'll find a weekly summary of news on the construction site and also ITER staff members, news, portraits, features... covering the various aspects of the ITER project.

The programme is repeated every Saturday at 08h30, and all previously broadcast programmes can be found here:

http://www.radio-verdon.com/

-Veronique Marfaing

ITER on Television

The local Television company TLP is producing a series of short documentaries about the ITER project.

To watch the latest programme, visit:

http://www.tlp.fr/

-Veronique Marfaing


PDF for printing Archive Search ITER home Subscribe Contact 25 August 2008 - #46
History Ansel Adams' greatest passions: wilderness preservation and fusion energy No one better than Californian photographer Ansel Adams (1902-1984) has captured the majesty and grandeur of the American landscape. Using a meticulous darkroom technique known as "zone printing", his vision magnified the humble and the grandiose alike, a full moon rising over a Mexican village or a clearing winter storm over Yosemite National Park. Ansel Adams took this picture of Dr Charles Damm, peering out of the central coil of the ALICE fusion installation, at Livermore Laboratories in 1966. Adam's relation to nature was both aesthetic and mystical. Throughout his life he worked and lobbied to preserve the wilderness and the great vistas of the American West. His book on The John Muir Trail was instrumental in the creation of Kings Canyon National Park in1940. One of Adam's lesser known passions was fusion energy. In Autumn 1966, he had been commissioned by Livermore National Laboratories to photograph various machines and installations, among them "ALICE" (Adiabatic Low-energy Injection and Confinement Experiment), a "mirror machine" which was expected to demonstrate "scientific feasibility" by the end of the decade... The Livermore commission was Adam's first exposure to fusion energy. Later in life, he became one of its most ardent advocates. In "Ansel Adams, an autobiography", published posthumously in 1984, the photographer tells of his June 1983 meeting with fellow Californian Ronald Reagan, whose environmental policies he had been criticizing sharply for years. "I suggested he take $ 10 billion from his defense program and apply it to a crash program for magnetic fusion development. Reagan raised an eyebrow at my temerity, but I believe it is obvious that, once fusion power is achieved, the energy shortage will be past." © UCR / California Museum of Photography, University of California, Riverside. Two and a half years later, on November 19, 1985, President Reagan was meeting Secretary General Gorbachev in Geneva, laying the political foundations of what was to become the ITER project. Maybe, on that occasion, the US president remembered the words of the bearded 82-year-old photographer-conservationist who had caused his eyebrow to rise. Adams had died the year before, convinced, as he expressed in his last interview to a San Francisco magazine, that fusion "wasn't that far down the road", that is, "only as far as our leaders want to make it." -Robert Arnoux Announcements Workshop on Value Engineering On 2 and 3 September, the ITER Civil Construction (CCS) Department is organizing a workshop on Value Engineering. The meeting will take place in the Aquabella Hotel in Aix-en-Provence. Value engineering is a formal process whereby functional requirements and traditional construction methods are challenged in order to come up with overall cost or schedule savings for the project. Please contact Timothy Watson for further details. ITER on Russian TV The Russian Media "Russia Today" has published a TV programme on the ITER project. Click here to watch it... Original soundtrack of ITER Summer Party now available The original soundtrack of ITER Summer Party is now available and can be downloaded here...	On Site On the road to ITER The works for the ITER itinerary are progressing. In order to enable the convoys delivering the big ITER parts to Cadarache (the convoys can reach lengths of up to 61 meters), the roundabouts near the CEA main entrance and in front of the Chantier RES on the road towards Vinon-sur-Verdon have been adapted. First convoys with dummy loads will test the ITER itinerary in 2009. In front of the Chantier RES in Cadarache, the roundabout has been flattened and reinforced allowing the convoys to pass. More information (in French)... Announcements Postdoctoral Position at University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool, Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, is offering a postdoctoral position. The candidate will work in the Technological Plasma Group in the area of advanced plasma diagnostic measurements on pulsed discharges used for the deposition of thin films. For more information, please visit: http://www.liv.ac.uk/working/job_vacancies/ Classe a theme: Speaking on the phone Friday, August 29 11 am — 12 noon Building 521, Room 104 Visits Dr Masaji Yoshikawa, former president of the Japanese Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI), with Hiroshi Matsumoto (ITER) and Jean-Michel Bottereau (AIF), in front of the new ITER mock-up during his visit to Cadarache on 22 August. Conferences 1-12 September, 2008 2nd Karlsruhe International Summer School on Fusion Technologies Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Germany 1 - 4 September, 2008 13th EU-US TTF Workshop Copenhagen, Denmark 8 - 12 September, 2008 International Congress on Plasma Physics Fukuoka, Japan 10 - 12 September, 2008 1st International Conference on Negative Ions, Beams and Sources Aix-en-Provence, France 15 - 19 September, 2008 Twenty-Fifth Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT 2008) Rostock, Germany 28 September - 2 October, 2008 ANS Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE2008) San Francisco, USA 13 - 18 October, 2008 22nd IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, 50th Anniversary of Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research Geneva, Switzerland NewsLine Editor The ITER Newsline is produced by Sabina Griffith. Suggestions for future articles, comments and corrections, as well as items for the calendar are welcome, and can be sent to sabina.griffith@iter.org.	Director's Corner Building up team spirit Dhiraj Bora Team spirit is extremely important for an effective and coherent team. In an international environment like ITER, this is especially true and therefore the CODAC team (with members from four parties) recently met for a one-day out-of-office brainstorming session. The idea was to interact freely and closely and by this to forge a team. It was a lively meeting with fruitful discussions on CODAC related design issues. In this meeting it became obvious that the various tasks and interfaces our department is charged with require more effort and teamwork. Especially as we are now entering the engineering design phase. But with more new staff members joining us soon, we hope to grow in strength and thus to be able to deliver goods in time. At the same time, as the activities increase all round the globe, the need for a better and more efficient mode of communicating among all ITER members became very obvious. This is thus one of the most significant objectives to be achieved in the IT division in 2008. We have already implemented an integrated desktop communication system from Microsoft which covers desktop audio and video conferencing, screen and application sharing, as well as instant messaging. We hope that this will greatly improve the day to day needs of the ITER Organization, the Domestic Agencies and their collaborators for an efficient communication around the globe. -Dhiraj Bora, ITER Deputy Director General for CODAC & IT, Current Drive and Heating & Diagnostics. Portrait A family affair Toshiyuki Ide To say that Toshiyuki Ide was in the nuclear business before he could walk may be an overstatement, but it is no exaggeration to state that it runs in the family. Toshi's father, who was a government official in the nuclear field, certainly transmitted his knowledge and passion for that field to his son. So after Toshi, who is Senior Administrator at the ITER Finance Division, finished his studies in Macroeconomics in 1981, it was no surprise that he would join the JAEA (Japan Atomic Energy Agency). And his encounter with nuclear fusion was almost immediate. His first assignment was in project management of JT 60, the Japanese tokamak, which at that time was being built. When he changed assignments after almost 3 years, to work as a member of the project management team of the nuclear ship project in 1983, he also got a new boss... a certain Mr Kaname Ikeda... a small world indeed. In 1989, when ITER was in the engineering design phase, Toshi joined the project and was at that time involved in the negotiations to get it to Japan. When the decision was taken to split up into three sites, Naka in Japan, Garching in Germany and San Diego in the US, he was part of the team responsible for accommodation, housing and schooling of the new arrivals and their families. This understanding of the ins and outs of relocating people came in handy when, after various other assignments with the JAEA, one of which in Vienna, he was offered a position with ITER in Cadarache in 2006. "I have always been an advocate of Cadarache as the ideal host of the ITER project," says Toshi, "and getting the chance to go and see for myself was a great opportunity. Having been here for more than two years now, what strikes me most is the exponential growth of the organization. Making sure our infrastructure, systems and administrative processes keep pace with this growth is probably the biggest current challenge in terms of management". In his current position within ITER, Toshi is part of the team that is making the implementation of SAP happen. He is also responsible for some of the financial reporting. -Iris Rona Links "Narrow-minded" energy research "The five billion euro investment into the ITER project seem to be an economically justifiable investment into our future", writes the German magazine Der Spiegel in its series about future energies. Due to rising oil prices households in Germany had to spend 22,4 billion Euros more in the first half year of 2008 than the year before. It therefore seems "narrow-minded" that fusion research institutes in Germany have to fight for every Euro, says the magazine. For more info, visit http://wissen.spiegel.de/wissen/image/show.html ITERfan.org Opens Club Forum! http://forums.iterfan.org/ ITER on the Radio If you are interested in the progress of the ITER project, then listen to Radio Verdon on 96.5. The local Radio Station has set up a special 7 minute programme "des Nouvelles d'ITER''. The programme is broadcast every Friday at 17h on Radio Verdon, in French and English. You'll find a weekly summary of news on the construction site and also ITER staff members, news, portraits, features... covering the various aspects of the ITER project. The programme is repeated every Saturday at 08h30, and all previously broadcast programmes can be found here: http://www.radio-verdon.com/ -Veronique Marfaing ITER on Television The local Television company TLP is producing a series of short documentaries about the ITER project. To watch the latest programme, visit: http://www.tlp.fr/ -Veronique Marfaing

History

Announcements

On Site

Announcements

Visits

Conferences

NewsLine Editor

Director's Corner

Portrait

Links