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News & Media

Latest ITER Mag

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Fusion world | Public/private consortium is building the DTT tokamak

    The Divertor Test Tokamak in Italy is creating a new model for engagement with industry in fusion research. ITER helped to pave the way. The Divertor Test Tokam [...]

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  • Image of the week | An architectural paradox

    There is something deliberately paradoxical in the architectural treatment of the ITER buildings. On the one hand, the alternation between the mirror-like stai [...]

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  • Former French Prime Minister | A fan then and now

    For Jean-Pierre Raffarin, former Prime Minister of France (2002-2005) who visited ITER on Friday 15 March, touring the ITER installation with ITER Director-Gene [...]

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  • CARE at ITER | New project values launched

    Collaboration, Accountability, Respect and Excellence drive the future of fusion for a diverse staff. When Pietro Barabaschi joined as ITER Director-General to [...]

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  • Blanket | Midway through shield block procurement

    It all begins with a forged stainless-steel block weighing nine tonnes. As machining and deep-drilling operations commence, the rectangular block progressively [...]

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2024

On accelerating fusion energy: some recent publications
18 Mar 2024
In just the past few weeks, these in-depth studies and reports have been published on fusion energy and fusion energy acceleration. 

Analysis on a strategic public-private partnership approach to foster innovation in fusion energy is a report commissioned by the European Union that provides analysis and recommendations for the European Commission on the establishment of a public-private partnership approach to support industrial innovation in fusion. The 128-page report can be downloaded at this address.

As part of its Technical Documents series (TECDOCs), the International Atomic Energy Agency has just published Considerations of Technology Readiness Levels for Fusion Technology Components (IAEA-TECDOC-2047, 91 pages) and Plasma Physics and Technology Aspects of the Deuterium—Tritium Fuel Cycle for Fusion Energy (IAEA-TECDOC-2049, 73 pages). Both reports can be downloaded or ordered in print form from this webpage

-- Photo of KSTAR (© KFE)

Apply for an internship at ITER
04 Mar 2024
The ITER Organization has opened its 2024 internship program with the publication of 60 offers on the ITER website. These opportunities are geared toward undergraduate and postgraduate students, with a broad array of topics across scientific, technical and support departments. Applicants must hold a passport from one of the countries participating in the ITER Project (the People's Republic of China, the European Union, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the USA).

See this page to apply. The deadline for students to submit their application is 17 March 2024. Please note that additional internship opportunities will be launched in May 2024.

Fusion Technology Awards: Nominate up to 11 March
04 Mar 2024
2024 IEEE Fusion Technology Awards will be presented during the 31th Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE 2025, Boston) to individuals who have distinguished themselves through innovation in any fusion approach that has shown significant promise or progress in the design of reactors or in the understanding of fusion plasmas. The awards each consist of a USD 3,000 cash prize, a plaque, and an invited talk at SOFE 2025.

The nomination package—consisting of a letter describing the technical contributions on which the nomination is recommended and a current resume of the candidate—should be sent before 11 March to the Fusion Technology Committee Awards Chair, Dr. Carl Pawley (drcpawley@ieee.org). Other supporting endorsements are encouraged. Equal consideration will be given to innovation in all fusion approaches and outstanding leadership in the fusion community.

For more detailed information on eligibility, basis for judging, the nomination process or a list of past award recipients, please visit the IEEE-NPSS website and go to the "Fusion Technology Awards" section.

--The IEEE Nuclear Plasma Science Society (NPSS) Fusion Technology Standing Committee

Standing ovation for JET "inventor"
04 Mar 2024
There was a time in fusion history when one single man could be credited with inspiring the best part of a machine's design. French physicist Paul-Henri Rebut was this kind of a man. In the early 1970s, a little more than a decade after entering fusion research at France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), he was instrumental in building TFR, for Tokamak de Fontenay-aux-Roses, a Paris suburb where CEA was then located. For his colleagues, however, TFR meant Tokamak Façon Rebut, which can be understood as "Tokamak à la Rebut"...

Operational in 1973, TFR was an ambitious and powerful machine that played a key role in exploring the physics and establishing the technology that made possible the construction of the "giants of the 1970s,"—the European JET, the American TFTR, the Japanese JT-60 and the Soviet T-15.

The experience accumulated at TFR led to the first international cooperation in constructing a fusion machine, the European JET whose design, quite naturally, was entrusted to Rebut and his team. Last week, as the fusion community celebrated JET's accomplishments at the Culham Campus (UK), the 89-year-old physicist, introduced as "the inventor and designer" of the iconic machine, was greeted by a standing ovation. It is under Rebut's stewardship that JET produced the first-ever deuterium-tritium plasmas, a campaign that culminated in a historical 16 MW of peak fusion power. Rebut later piloted the ITER design activities (1992-1994), and well into the 2000s he was a familiar figure at ITER Headquarters providing advice and suggestions to optimize the ITER design.

Photo: The JET project team in 1977: Paul-Henri Rebut (centre) and colleagues Alan Gibson (UK), Giulio Celentano (Italy), Ettore Salpietro (Italy), John Last (UK), Barry Green (Australia), Peter Noll (Germany), Jean-Pierre Poffé (Belgium), Ingevar Selin (Sweden), and Dieter Eckhart (Germany). © EFDA

Read the full article on Rebut's standing ovation during JET's celebration day here.

Apply now for an ITER internship
21 Feb 2024
The ITER Organization has opened its 2024 internship program with the publication of 60 offers on the ITER website. These opportunities are geared toward undergraduate and postgraduate students, with a broad array of topics across scientific, technical and support departments. Applicants must hold a passport from one of the countries participating in the ITER Project (the People's Republic of China, the European Union, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the USA).

See this page to apply. The deadline for students to submit their application is 17 March 2024. Please note that additional internship opportunities will be launched in May 2024.

Sign up for the Third Tritium School in March
19 Feb 2024
The third edition of the Tritium School will take place in Marseille, France, from 18 to 22 March 2024. Organized by the TITANS Project, which strives to improve tritium management and knowledge to meet the growing demand for nuclear energy, it is organized around four days of invited lectures and contributed talks, and a fifth day comprising a visit to the ITER site.

The young generation of researchers working in fusion and fission research and development is encouraged to participate.

Topics for discussion will include tritium management, inventory and control; waste; radiotoxicity/ecotoxicity; epidemiology of tritium; and tritium dosimetry.

For all information, and to register, see this webpage. The School will be conducted in English.

Monaco-ITER postdoctoral positions | Apply by 29 February
19 Feb 2024
If your PhD was awarded after 1 January 2021—or you are about to obtain one—you are eligible to apply for a Monaco-ITER Postdoctoral Fellowship.

The Fellowship Program is recruiting now for two-year terms beginning autumn 2024.

Since 2008, 39 young scientists and engineers have been able to participate directly in ITER, working on cutting-edge issues in science and technology with some of the leading scientists and engineers in each domain. The principal aim of the Research Fellowships, which are funded by the Principality of Monaco, is the development of research excellence in fusion science and technology within the framework of ITER.

The deadline for application is coming up (29 February 2024). See all information here.

Fusion Industry School 2024
13 Feb 2024
The Fusion Industry School is a two-week interactive program of lectures from world-leading experts in fusion, aimed at providing an overview of the current progress and challenges to industry professionals. The school consists of lectures, networking sessions, panel discussions and Q&As as well as visits to the UKAEA national fusion facilities. 

The Fusion Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) have worked with the fusion community to prepare a program created to meet the needs of the emerging fusion industry and associated supply chain companies and organizations.

The first week (17-20 June 2024) takes place in York (UK) and focuses on the underpinning fusion science and technology. The second week (30 September to 3 October 2024) in Oxfordshire (UK) builds on the first week, with more of an emphasis on engineering applications. The program is optimized for delegates attending both weeks, but there is still benefit to only attending one. No prior knowledge of fusion science and technology is necessary.

Visit the program website for all information and testimonials from previous delegates: Fusion Industry School 2024

Time to nominate: Fusion Power Associates awards
06 Feb 2024
Fusion Power Associates is calling out for nominations for two awards:

* The 2024 Leadership and Distinguished Career Awards (nominations are sought by 1 June). No supporting material is required for these nominations, although supporting statements are appreciated.

* The 2024 Excellence in Fusion Engineering Awards (Nominations are sought by 15 June). The purpose is to recognize individuals in the early part of their careers (maximum age 42) with both technical accomplishment and demonstrated leadership qualities. Nominating material should include the candidate's bio and letters of recommendation, including at least one letter from outside the nominee's home institution. 

Nominations and nominating material should preferably be sent electronically but may also be faxed to 1-301-975-9869 or mailed to Fusion Power Associates, 2 Professional Drive, Suite 249, Gaithersburg, MD 20879, USA.

The purpose, criteria and list of previous recipients for all awards are posted at http://fusionpower.org and click on Awards. For questions contact: fusionpwrassoc@aol.com

Europe's first sector passes leak tests
05 Feb 2024
The European Domestic Agency, Fusion for Energy, has announced that the first of five vacuum vessel sectors under its responsibility has passed leak testing.

The tests, which assess leak tightness using nitrogen and helium, are the first in a line of factory acceptance tests that must be completed successfully before the component can ship.

See the full report on the Fusion for Energy website.

--View of the Europe's vacuum vessel sector 5, Westinghouse/Mangiarotti, Italy ©F4E

Nominations open: 2024 Fusion Technology Awards
02 Feb 2024
The IEEE Nuclear Plasma Science Society (NPSS) Fusion Technology Standing Committee is pleased to announce that during the 31th Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE 2025) in Boston, the 2024 Fusion Technology Awards will be presented to individuals who have distinguished themselves through innovation in any fusion approach that has shown significant promise or progress in the design of reactors or in the understanding of fusion plasmas. The awards each consist of a USD 3,000 cash prize, a plaque, and an invited talk at SOFE 2025.

The nomination package—consisting of a letter describing the technical contributions on which the nomination is recommended and a current resume of the candidate—should be sent to the Fusion Technology Committee Awards Chair, Dr. Carl Pawley (drcpawley@ieee.org). Other supporting endorsements are encouraged. Equal consideration will be given to innovation in all fusion approaches and outstanding leadership in the fusion community.

For more detailed information on eligibility, basis for judging, the nomination process or a list of past award recipients, please visit the IEEE-NPSS website and go to the "Fusion Technology Awards" section.

The nomination deadline for the 2024 Fusion Technology Awards is 11 March 2024.

ITER @ the 2024 Construction Technology Summit
31 Jan 2024
Senior Project Manager Laure Navarro (ITER/MOMENTUM) will be speaking in March at the Construction Technology Summit in Austin, Texas, on the topic of "How digital technology is helping to build the ITER fusion reactor."

The conference is planned for Tuesday 19 March at 15h10 CST (in-person only).

See all information on this webpage.

STARMAKERS: the story of JET's fusion power record
26 Jan 2024
In December 2021 the JET tokamak broke the world record for fusion power. Pulse #99971 achieved total fusion energy of 59 MJ—more than doubling JET's 1997 record.

STARMAKERS: The Energy Of Tomorrow tells the story of this achievement. It takes the viewer behind the scenes of the landmark European fusion experiment to show how scientists and engineers overcame incredible obstacles to move the world one step closer to a future of clean, safe, cheap and unlimited energy.

The documentary is available on Prime Video to rent or buy. Depending on your region, try this link or this link.

FUSION-EP Master's: apply now
26 Jan 2024
The European Master of Science in Nuclear Fusion and Engineering Physics (FUSION-EP) is a two-year Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree (EMJMD) funded by the European Union. Focusing on the physics and technology of nuclear fusion as an energy source, it offers research-oriented education in engineering physics, offered by a consortium of eight European universities in Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany and Spain.

The curriculum is organized in two periods of increasing specialization, each in two different countries, along two distinct tracks: Fusion Sciences and Fusion Technology.

Students from all countries can apply. The selection procedure does not make any distinction between EU students and students coming from outside the EU. Scholarships are available to top-ranked students that cover the participation fee and offer a monthly allowance for the two years.

The campaign for the program beginning autumn 2024 is underway now. Apply before 15 February 2024 on the FUSION EP website.

Announcement: 15th ITER Neutronics Meeting in April
25 Jan 2024
The 15th ITER Neutronics Meeting and Fusion Neutronics Workshop 2024 will be held at ITER Headquarters from 8 to 10 April 2024.

The workshop will provide the opportunity for the fusion neutronics community to discuss recent advancements, issues and successes in the field.

Considering work underway in startups on alternative fusion concepts, progress on other technologies such as inertial fusion, and recent advancements (codes, shielding materials, etc.), the workshop seeks to broaden participation beyond ITER/DEMO scope. We encourage young researchers and fusion start-ups to participate in this event and present their work.

Planned topics include:

  • Neutronics related to ITER
  • Nuclear-radiation-related safety issues (safety margins/uncertainties, code qualification)
  • Computational tools and nuclear data relevant for nuclear fusion (transport codes, activation codes, CAD/MCNP converting tools ...)
  • Dose reduction methods and optimization, ALARA
  • Shielding materials
  • Material damage, nuclear heating, radioactive waste production and management 
  • Accelerator-driven neutron sources for fusion applications
  • Activated corrosion products
  • Nuclear licensing for fusion reactors 
  • Neutronics beyond ITER (DEMO, fusion power plants, alternate fusion schemes)
This meeting will be held primarily in-person but a few online presentations/participations are also possible. Subject to conditions, this workshop also includes ITER construction site visit.

See important dates and registration information on this page

ITER Director to speak at Royal Institution event
24 Jan 2024
On Friday 2 February, the Royal Institution in London is hosting a public discussion on "The latest developments in fusion energy."

At this in-person and live-streamed event, co-hosted by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), distinguished experts Fernanda Rimini (UKAEA), Pietro Barabaschi (Director-General of the ITER Project), and Tammy Ma (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) will take participants on a journey into the heart of fusion research and the most recent and groundbreaking discoveries in this leading-edge field.

See all information for how to attend in person or online here.

Looking for 5 Monaco-ITER Fellows
17 Jan 2024
The recruitment campaign for 2024-2026 Monaco-ITER Postdoctoral Fellowships has opened. We are looking for top candidates with an excellent track record of creativity and accomplishment. Research possibilities exist in many areas of fusion science and technology, including:

Control technology
Plasma-facing materials and components
Burning plasma physics (confinement, stability, plasma-wall interactions, control, energetic particle physics)
Heating and current drive physics and technology
Fusion plasma diagnostics
Superconducting magnet technology
Electrical engineering
Mechanical engineering/ structural analysis
Remote handling technology
Vacuum technology and plasma fuelling technology
Cryogenics
Tokamak operations
Tritium breeding and tritium handling technology
Thermohydraulics

If your PhD was awarded after 1 January 2021—or if you are about to obtain one—and you come from one of the seven ITER Members or the Principality of Monaco, you are eligible to apply.

See all information on this webpage. Applications close on 29 February.

Deadline extended: SOFT Innovation Prize
11 Jan 2024
Fusion researchers are constantly challenging the scientific state of the art and improving the technology. This drive lay the basis the conditions for innovation, much of which can be exploited in other sciences and industrial sectors for the benefit of society.

The SOFT Innovation Prize rewards outstanding achievements in fusion energy research showcasing opportunities of valorization in the sector. It is intended for researchers and/or industrial actors who find new solutions, possibly with wider applications, to the challenges of fusion.

SOFT stands for Symposium on Fusion Technology—the name of  conference where the prize is awarded. Following the success of the previous editions, the European Commission is holding the contest again in conjunction with SOFT 2024 (23-27 September 2024, Dublin, Ireland).

There are no specific categories for this prize. Participants are free to submit an application concerning any physics or technology innovation that has been developed in magnetic confinement fusion research and that has market potential or has been taken up (or recognized) by industry to be further developed for the market.

Entries will be assessed on originality and replicability, technical excellence, economic impact, exploitation, and plans for further development. Proposals are studied by an independent jury composed of experts in technology transfer, from business and academia.

The deadline to submit applications has been extended to 15 February 2024. See further details on the SOFT Prize website.

KSTAR aims for longer plasmas
08 Jan 2024
At the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy (KFE), the KSTAR tokamak recommenced operations in December after a major upgrade to replace the device's carbon divertor with a tungsten divertor.

According to an article on the KFE website, the original carbon divertors could take a thermal load of 5MW/m², whereas the tungsten divertor can take 10MW/m². The upgrade is critical to the goal of sustaining a 100-million-degree plasma for 300 seconds by 2026. Data from the operational campaign will be directly relevant to ITER, which will operate a tungsten divertor under similar plasma conditions in terms of shape and structure.

This testing campaign will continue through February 2024. Read more about the plans in this article in English on the KFE website, or in Korean in the Chosun Biz.

2023

JET's final salvo
21 Dec 2023
From a UKAEA press release on 20 December 2023.

Some 40 and a half years after its first pulse on 25 June 1983, JET delivered pulse number 105,842 on Tuesday 18 December 2023.

UKAEA Chief Executive Officer, Prof Sir Ian Chapman, who was in attendance in JET's control room for the final plasma experiment, said: "This is the final milestone in JET's 40-year history. Those decades of research using JET by dedicated teams of scientists and engineers have played a critical role in accelerating the development of fusion energy."

JET's final day of plasma continued to push scientific boundaries, firstly attempting an inverted plasma shape for the first time at Culham before deliberately aiming electrons at the inner wall to improve understanding of beam control and damage mechanisms. The findings of these experiments will support the development of ITER.

JET will now move on to the next phase of its life cycle in early 2024 for repurposing and decommissioning, which will last until approximately 2040.

JET was operated at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy as a Joint Undertaking of the European Community between 1977 and 2000, with the Euratom Research and Training program contributing approximately 80 percent of JET operation costs through 2021. Under the operation of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) since 2000, JET was used by 4,800 EUROfusion consortium experts, students and staff from across Europe.

--The JET control room on the day of final plasma experiments. Photo: UKAEA/EUROfusion

IAEA webinar on "Fusion Energy at COP28"
12 Dec 2023
On Thursday 14 December, join in for Episode #2 of the IAEA Fusion Energy Webinar Series. "Fusion Energy at COP28: A promising emerging climate solution" will address the growing momentum worldwide behind fusion as a climate solution, as evidenced most recently at the COP 28 climate summit in Dubai.

Adam Danilowicz, of the IAEA, will moderate a panel with distinguished guests:

Scott Hsu, Senior Advisor and Lead Fusion Coordinator Office of the Under Secretary for Science & Innovation, US Department of Energy

Tim Bestwick, Chief Development Officer and Deputy CEO, United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority 

Stephanie Diem, Assistant Professor, Department of Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Andrew Holland, Chief Executive Officer of the Fusion Industry Association

See all information at this address.

12 December: Live from JET's control room!
11 Dec 2023
On Tuesday 12 December, from 10:30 to 11:45 in the morning (GMT), the JET tokamak team will be hosting a special *LIVE* YouTube show direct from the JET control room. 

JET operation ends this week with final plasma shots planned on 14 and 15 December. Join the team to look back over 40 years of research on JET and look ahead toward the future of fusion. The agenda includes a talk on "What's made JET special"; a discussion about achievements at JET; an interview with Tony Donné from EUROfusion; and a discussion on the next steps in fusion.

Participants can ask their questions by chat during the live stream. See all information here.

FuseNet Master Thesis Prize 2023
06 Dec 2023
Have you written a fusion-related Master's thesis in 2023? Then you can participate in the FuseNet Master Thesis Prize 2023!

To stimulate excellence in fusion research, FuseNet would like to award several students for outstanding Master's theses that were carried out in Europe or in collaboration with international institutions.

Nominations for this Master's thesis prize can be made through the FuseNet website at the link below. Please make sure that the submission is agreed with your institution and its FuseNet contact person. Only one submission per FuseNet member institution is allowed. The submission deadline is 1 February 2024.

See all information on the FuseNet website.

Guest lecture on high-powered lasers and fusion
04 Dec 2023
Félicie Albert, Director of the Jupiter Laser Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, delivered a guest lecture on 4 December 2023 to several hundred members of the ITER community. She returned to the achievement of fusion ignition at the National Ignition Facility in December 2022—a first-of-class milestone that had reverberated around the world and that has been replicated several times since—and brought the audience up to date on future plans for the facility.

"The National Ignition Facility has not yet reached its full potential; we have many plans for the future," she said. Increasing the energy of the laser, achieving more routine implosions of the deuterium-tritium target, and sustaining the facility through the maintenance and replacement of components are all on the list. As for the longer-term prospects of designing and building a fusion power plant based on laser technology (inertial fusion), she described the many scientific and technological challenges that would have to be overcome.

Director Albert also took time to describe other laser facilities at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where research activities are underway to investigate particle acceleration in laser-driven plasmas as a way to generate x-rays that have unique properties and that can be used for non-destructive examination of materials or the probing of matter in extreme conditions.

Félicie Albert is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and the recipient of numerous awards including the APS Katherine E. Weimer Award (2017) and the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineers (2019).

New resource on fusion
01 Dec 2023
After dedicating their careers to fusion power development, five recently retired engineers have launched an educational website, Facts About Fusion, that is designed to make the intricate world of fusion energy understandable and engaging for everyone.

Bill Spears, Federico Casci, Werner Gulden, Antonino Cardella, and Lorenzo Virgilio Boccaccini set out to give "a grounded view of the requirements, aims, and variety of fusion power development, highlighting the achievements so far, the current status, and the steps still needed to reach an acceptable solution."

What sets this site apart, according to its authors, is its objective viewpoint. "While the authors are knowledgeable and experienced in the field of fusion, their retirement status allows them to offer a neutral perspective that complements existing fusion project websites. This unique vantage point enhances the website's goal of fostering a better-informed public."

Click to visit Facts About Fusion.

See this introductory article by Bill Spears published on the EUROfusion website.

ITER joins other energy actors at COP28
27 Nov 2023
Join the ITER Organization at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP28, in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December. You can find the ITER pavilion in the Blue Zone, B7, Building 88, on the second floor. Follow us on social media to stay abreast of the dynamic series of talks, panel discussions and events planned around fusion energy.

ITER @ the World Nuclear Exhibition this week
27 Nov 2023
On Tuesday, 28 November, the World Nuclear Exhibition will open its doors at Paris Villepinte, and the ITER Organization will be there to hold up the fusion flag. Come and see us at our exhibition booth AE140. On Thursday, 30 November, 11.30-12.00, we will also present upcoming business opportunities in a special workshop in Room 3.

See all information about the World Nuclear Exhibition here.

NTT and ITER to collaborate on early anomaly prediction
27 Nov 2023
Global technology solutions provider NTT Corporation (Japan) and the ITER Organization are planning joint experiments on predicting anomalies in ITER plant facilities. The early detection of anomalies and failures can reduce equipment downtime and increase the efficiency of the ITER Tokamak's operational phases.

NTT's artificial-intelligence (AI) powered anomaly prediction technology "DeAnoS" (for Deep Anomaly Surveillance) will be used to understand the normal status of selected ITER plant equipment, to detect faults, and to predict anomalies. The ITER Organization has already provided some operational data from the cooling water system to set up this ambitious collaboration, and will scale up with data from other equipment in the years ahead.

These experiments result from a Cooperation Agreement signed with NTT in 2020.

See the press release issued by NTT here.

ITER manga 5.0
16 Nov 2023
In the fifth installment of ITER Japan's manga series on the project, our hero Taiyô Tenno visits the Gyrotron Test Facility at the Naka Fusion Institute where eight ITER gyrotrons were manufactured and tested. Taiyô learns about the synthetic diamond windows that were developed over 30 years of R&D and that allow strong microwave pulses to pass through to the plasma without cracking.

Download any of the comics in the "ITER: A Small Sun on Earth" series from the ITER Japan website or directly from the ITER Publications gallery (comics).
360° tour updated (October 2023)
16 Nov 2023
The virtual tour of ITER construction has been updated with high-definition 360° photos from October 2023. Enter the main ITER plant buildings or the machine assembly theatre to see what has changed since the last update in January 2023.

Accessible from the home page of the ITER website (yellow icon) or by clicking on the link below.

Click here to enter the latest 360° ITER virtual tour.

ITER @ Berlin Science Week
02 Nov 2023
On Friday 3 November, ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi took part in a panel discussion on nuclear fusion organized as part of the Berlin Science Week

Moderated by Sakura Pascarelli (Scientific Director, European XFEL), "Nuclear fusion for a decarbonized future" featured:

— Pietro Barabaschi, Director-General, ITER Organization (keynote)
— Masaya Hanada, Director General, Naka Fusion Institute Japan
— Steven Cowley, Director, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, USA
— Piergiorgio Sonato, President, RFX Consortium, Italy
— Hartmut Zohm, Head of Tokamak Division, MPI-IPP, Germany

After describing project status, Director-General Barabaschi commented on how ITER is contributing to the world fusion research program. "Fusion is an innovation program ... it's not just one project. [...] We see now a renaissance of fusion around the world. A lot of private investment interest, a lot of companies, a lot of opportunities for young people. [...] A lot of new ideas will come up and I believe that ITER can provide some support. [...] Others may learn from what we are doing; it's part of our job I believe."

You can watch a replay of the public event at this address.

First plasma at JT-60SA!
24 Oct 2023
The Europe/Japan team at the JT-60SA tokamak in Naka, Japan, succeeded on 23 October 2023 in producing a tokamak plasma for the first time.

The team issued the following statement: 

"This is a major achievement by the teams involved in the operation of the biggest experimental fusion device to date using magnetic confinement. The result will be carefully examined as the teams will continue to perform more tests during the next weeks. This will culminate on 1 December when the newly built fusion research facility will be officially inaugurated in Naka in the presence of delegates from Japan and Europe. Stay tuned for further updates!"

See the press release in Japanese issued by Japan's National Institutes of Quantum Science and Technology (QST) and the article published by the European Domestic Agency, Fusion for Energy.

A new source for updates on fusion energy
18 Oct 2023
The IAEA's World Fusion Outlook aims to be the global reference for authoritative information and updates on fusion energy.

The IAEA has been promoting fusion energy research and development for over 60 years, and it continues to strongly support R&D and future deployment by bringing the fusion community together to create solutions for both scientific and technological challenges. This first issue of the publication outlines achievements in fusion energy; its safety, security, safeguards, nuclear law and liability challenges; as well as the role of the IAEA.

Download the full report from the IAEA website here.

The introduction to the IAEA World Fusion Outlook 2023 is available in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish here (scroll down the page).


FEC 2023: How to participate remotely
12 Oct 2023
The 29th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2023) is taking place next week in London. In-person registration has closed, but remote participation is possible. Follow the instructions on this page to register for virtual attendance.

Registered virtual attendees will be able to follow all the technical sessions of the conference online via the IAEA conference and meetings app. (Consult the preliminary program here.)

The 29th Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2023) aims to provide a forum for the discussion of key physics and technology issues as well as innovative concepts of direct relevance to the use of nuclear fusion as a future source of energy. It is organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) through the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).

Apply now: SOFT Innovation Prize
12 Oct 2023
Fusion researchers are constantly challenging the scientific state of the art and improving the technology. This drive lay the basis the conditions for innovation, much of which can be exploited in other sciences and industrial sectors for the benefit of society.

The SOFT Innovation Prize rewards outstanding achievements in fusion energy research showcasing opportunities of valorization in the sector. It is intended for researchers and/or industrial actors who find new solutions, possibly with wider applications, to the challenges of fusion.

SOFT stands for Symposium on Fusion Technology—the name of  conference where the prize is awarded. Following the success of the previous editions, the European Commission is holding the contest again in conjunction with SOFT 2024 (23-27 September 2024, Dublin, Ireland).

There are no specific categories for this prize. Participants are free to submit an application concerning any physics or technology innovation that has been developed in magnetic confinement fusion research and that has market potential or has been taken up (or recognized) by industry to be further developed for the market.

Entries will be assessed on originality and replicability, technical excellence, economic impact, exploitation, and plans for further development. Proposals are studied by an independent jury composed of experts in technology transfer, from business and academia.

The deadline to submit applications is 16 January 2024. See further details on the SOFT Prize website.

Register for the FuseNet Master Event
11 Oct 2023
Are you currently a fusion or plasma physics Master's student, or are you starting a Master's during the next academic year? Are you looking for an opportunity to meet the community and learn more about studying for this field? Then the FuseNet Master Event 2023 is the place for you.

The third edition of the FuseNet Master Event will take place on Tuesday 23 November 2023. The event will be held fully online on the Gathertown platform. All master's students in fusion-related fields are invited to join the event. The event will interest to both students who are just getting started in fusion, and students who are graduating. 

More information on the program can be found on the registrations page. See you there!

Bernard Bigot Researcher Grant winners named
09 Oct 2023
The EUROfusion consortium for the realization of fusion energy has awarded ten Bernard Bigot Researcher Grants (ERG) to talented post-doctoral researchers across Europe. The ERG grants enable early-career researchers to develop innovative ideas and techniques to advance EUROfusion's Roadmap to Fusion Energy.

The EUROfusion Bernard Bigot Researcher Grants program, named after the third Director-General of the ITER Organization, supports excellent scientists at the post-doctoral level in their career development. The ERG grants cover part of the salaries of the selected candidates and part of the cost of their research activities and missions for a duration of up to two years.

Read all about the ten awardees on this EUROfusion webpage.

Exploring the potential of science diplomacy
09 Oct 2023
The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) is an intergovernmental organization that brings together 43 countries to strengthen regional cooperation and dialogue through specific projects and initiatives that address inclusive and sustainable development, stability and integration in the Euro-Mediterranean area.

On 3 October in Barcelona, Spain, UfM and the European Union co-organized the Euro-Mediterranean Conference on Science Diplomacy, with the aim of highlighting the state of science diplomacy in the Mediterranean as well as obstacles and opportunities. More than 80 people from 22 countries attended, including scientists, diplomats, and research and innovation officials.

ITER, as an example of science diplomacy, was invited to take part. The ITER Project was represented by Marc Lachaise, director of Fusion for Energy (the European Union organization managing Europe's contribution to ITER), who participated in a panel discussion on research infrastructure. 

See the press release issued after the event here.

JT-60SA: Coil energization
26 Sep 2023
After bringing the magnetic coil systems of JT-60SA to superconducting temperatures in July 2023, energization—the process of running current through the magnets—has begun.

The toroidal field coil system (18 D-shaped coils) was put through a series of tests in August to verify that the system's quench detection and protection circuits were working optimally and that the current could be safely increased. Now, tests have begun on the tokamak's six ring-shaped equilibrium field coils, with limited voltages and currents at the start to avoid unnecessary risk.

Read more about JT-60SA commissioning activities on this website.

New IAEA publication
25 Sep 2023
"The world we live in today [has] demands for clean energy outstripping supply. This has made clean sources of energy, such as fusion, of increasing interest to policymakers, investors and the wider public. In principle, fusion could generate four times more energy per kilogram of fuel than fission and nearly four million times more energy than burning oil and coal. The current level of international commitment to this clean source of energy is bringing us closer to fusion energy.

So begins the 800-page Fundamentals of Magnetic Fusion Technology published this month by the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA. The high-level text book is written for graduate students focusing on fusion technology, as well as for established plasma physicists and others working in the field and requiring a comprehensive overview. 

"Over the coming decades fusion R&D will shift from being science-driven and laboratory-based towards a technology-driven, industry-based venture. Significant innovation is and will be required [...]. Furthermore, the transition will focus on technologies and standards associated with the 'nuclearization of fusion' which has consequences for the required competences of the workforce. The main objective of this publication is to contribute to the consolidation and better exploitation of the achievements already reached in the past to tackle the present challenges in preparing the workforce in the different areas, with special attention to continuous professional development and life-long learning."

Download or order your copy from the IAEA website.

Big science get together: ESO @ ITER
18 Sep 2023
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is an intergovernmental organization that designs, constructs and operates powerful ground-based observing facilities for astronomy. It currently operates three unique world class observing sites in the Atacama Desert region of Chile and is building the Extremely Large Telescope, which will be the largest optical/near-infrared telescope in the world. 

Professor Xavier Barcons, the Director General of ESO, was a guest on site at ITER on Friday 15 September. After exchanges with management and an extended tour of the worksite, he delivered a guest lecture to hundreds of members of the ITER community who were present in the amphitheatre or logged on remotely.

"What we can say, to start, is that we both work with plasmas, although many orders of magnitude apart in size," said ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi in his introduction of Professor Barcons. "And there are other things that we share—we are delivering research infrastructures at the frontier of science and technology, we are unique in our fields, and we face common challenges not only in engineering and technology ... but also in procurement, administration and staffing issues such as diversity. Beyond the pleasure of welcoming Professor Barcons today, we also hope to find areas where we can assist one another."

You can learn more about the European Southern Observatory here.

FuseNet Teachers Day
14 Sep 2023
Registrations are open for the 2023 European Fusion Teacher Day!
 
The goal of the European Fusion Teacher Day, which will take place on 6 October, is to introduce nuclear fusion to secondary school teachers throughout Europe, discuss teaching nuclear fusion to secondary school students, and create enthusiasm for the field of fusion at the secondary education level.
 
You can find the agenda and the registration page at the event site here. Registration closes on 2 October.
Vacancy: FuseNet Student Council
05 Sep 2023
Do you want to be more involved in the promotion of fusion education in Europe? Do you have ideas on how to make the fusion scientific community bigger? Do you want to give input as a student to FuseNet, the European Fusion Education Network? 

The FuseNet Student Council is a separate advisory body in which Master and PhD students from member institutions across Europe convene and provide input to the Board of Governors. Members of the Student Council take part in Work Packages, and they are responsible for the organization of the FuseNet Master Event. The Student Council convenes predominantly online but also has at least one live meeting each year at the FuseNet PhD Event.

All current Master and PhD students affiliated with a FuseNet member institution are welcome to apply. Member terms are one year with the possibility of a one-year extension.

The deadline is 10 October 2023. See all information here.

United Nations: "Science as a public good"
04 Sep 2023
After designating 2022 as the "International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD)," the United Nations (UN) General Assembly has now proclaimed 2024 to 2033 as the "International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (IDSSD)," acknowledging the imperative to "create bridges accross scientific disciplines and knowledge forms in order to address the complex and intricate challenges of our time."

Recognizing that developing countries face specific challenges in accessing new sciences and technologies, the resolution—proposed by Argentina, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Serbia, South Africa, Spain and Vietnam—proclaims the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development represents "a unique opportunity for humanity to use the critical role that sciences play in the pursuit of sustainable development in its three dimensions as one of the key means of implementation as well as in responding to the complex challenges of our time to ensure a safe and prosperous future for all."

The ITER Organization is one of many scientific organizations that supports the IYBSSD.

Read the UN declaration in English here.

MT-28 Conference: last days to register
01 Sep 2023
The technical program of the 28th International Conference on Magnet Technology (MT-28) will kick off in Aix-en-Provence, France, on 11 September 2023. Interest has been high, with nearly 1,000 registered participants and extensive paper submissions. Plenary talks, topic sessions, short courses and an industrial exhibition are all on the schedule.

Registration is still available on line through Tuesday, 5 September.

For members of the press, please contact Sabina Griffith (sabina.griffith@iter.org) to be kept abreast of the planned press event.

JET running final campaign
01 Sep 2023
JET, the Joint European Torus in Culham, Oxfordshire (UK), has just kicked off a third and final campaign in deuterium and tritium. The planned experiments, known as "DTE3," will run for seven weeks and focus on plasma science, materials science, and neutronics.

This campaign comes just 20 months after JET demonstrated sustained fusion over five seconds at high power and set a world record. In June, JET celebrated 40 years of science.

JET's research findings have been critical to planning at ITER, as well as to that of the UK's prototype fusion powerplant STEP, the European DEMO prototype fusion plant, and other national laboratory and private projects around the world.  

Repurposing and decomissioning activities on JET are scheduled to begin in 2024. 

See the announcement on the UKAEA/Culham Centre for Fusion Energy website.

Fusion Energy Camp in Denmark
01 Sep 2023
For the third year in a row, the Department of Physics at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) has held its Fusion Energy Summer Camp for high school students.

19 participants aged 16 to 19 got to work as researchers and conduct experiments on DTU's small, and Scandinavia's only, NORTH tokamak. From early morning to late evening, from 30 July to 4 August, they followed lectures, practiced problem solving and programming in fusion energy and plasma physics, and participated in experiments, while also having fun and getting a taste of university life on campus.

The DTU Physics teams thanks the Novo Nordisk Foundation for its generous support in helping to inspire the young generation to consider an education in science and engineering and be part of the push to develop a sustainable future.

--Søren Bang Korsholm, Senior Scientist, and Alexander Simon Thrysøe, Scientist at DTU Physics.

Photo: Students are introduced to the NORdic Tokamak device (NORTH) that is enriching the physics and engineering programs at the Technical University of Denmark. Credit: Magnus Møller 

JT-60SA: coils are superconducting
27 Jul 2023
The transition to superconducting has been observed in the JT-60SA's central solenoid and toroidal field magnets, according to reporting by the team.

Superconductivity is a natural property of certain metals, alloys and ceramics when cooled below a defined "critical temperature." Below the critical temperature—which varies for each material—electrical resistance drops to zero, allowing these materials to carry large amounts of electrical current without losing energy.

JT-60SA's central solenoid is wound from niobium tin (Nb3Sn) cable-in-conduit conductor, which in the absence of any magnetic field becomes superconducting at about 18 K (-255°C). Early on 22 July the four modules of the central solenoid reached this temperature and the resistance of the magnets dropped to almost zero. The superconducting transition for the tokamak's 18 toroidal field coils and 6 equilibrium field coils (made from niobium titanium (NbTi) cable-in-conduit conductor) occurred at about 9 K (-264°C) on 24 July.

The JT-60SA tokamak is a joint program of fusion research and development agreed and co-financed by the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the government of Japan.

See the full report on this JT-60SA webpage.

The ITER Podcast: Episode 6, Season 2
24 Jul 2023
The sixth and last episode of Season 2 of The ITER World is now available.

"Narrating A Giant" caps off the season by interviewing ITER Head of Communication Laban Coblentz. What public information strategy should be followed for this project that has so many complex layers of science, engineering, technology and politics? How to sustain interest in a project that spans decades? How to combat misconceptions? 

Listen to the latest episode directly on the ITER website or through Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, PodBean, Spotify, or Tune In.

Problems, and solutions, at ITER (video)
24 Jul 2023
Physicist Hartmut Zohm from Germany's Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) invites ITER's Head of Science, Alberto Loarte, to discuss the recent technical setbacks at ITER and plans for recovery. 

What are the specific problems and solutions? How will the setbacks affect full-power operation? Is scientific planning affected? Is the delay for repair also an opportunity in some areas to modify strategy? In what ways does ITER remain a "teaching" device?

The 17-minute talk "Nuclear Fusion: Problems at the ITER Research Project and Current Solutions" is available in English and German.

CGTN's RAZOR Science visits
20 Jul 2023
RAZOR, CGTN Europe's science and technology show, has published a 27-minute episode on the ITER Project.

Host Neil Cairns takes the viewer into some of the most interesting spaces of the ITER site, including the cathedral-like Tokamak pit, the gargantuan Assembly Hall and ITER Headquarters where staff from 35 nations are collaborating to "recreate the Sun's energy" on Earth. Through interviews with workers, managers and staff, the documentary captures the ambition of ITER and the gamechanging nature of fusion. "It's like when humans learned how to use fire," says one of the Chinese consortium members involved in machine assembly. "This is the second fire of humans in our history."

Watch "Are we any closer to recreating the Sun's energy at ITER?" on the RAZOR Science YouTube channel here.

An "electrifying year" for fusion
13 Jul 2023
The Fusion Industry Association has released its third annual survey of private fusion enterprises around the world.

The fusion industry continues to grow globally, with 13 new entrants, USD 1.4 billion (EUR 12.5 billion) in fresh funding, and nearly 1,000 direct jobs (+3,000 in the supply chain) created.

Private fusion initiatives exist in Australia (1), Canada (1), China (2), France (1), Israel (1), Italy (1), Germany (3), Japan (3), New Zealand (1), Sweden (1), the United Kingdom (3), and the United States (25).

These fusion companies are also benefitting at times from public money, as governments seek to spur innovation through public-private partnerships.

The companies participating in the survey spoke of their optimism about delivering fusion power to the grid, although "challenges remain."

You can download "The Global Fusion Industry in 2023" from this page on the Fusion Industry Association website.

Diamonds for ITER
10 Jul 2023
Offering unsurpassed hardness, broad band optical transparency, and extremely high thermal conductivity, synthetic diamonds are the material of choice for 60 small windows that offer access to the machine for the high-frequency electromagnetic waves of ITER's electron cyclotron heating system, yet ensure a tight vacuum boundary.

The European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy, has procured 60 synthetic diamond discs through the German firm Diamond Materials. Now they must be polished, optically inspected, and finally joined with the diamond window unit through brazing.

See the original story on the Fusion for Energy website for all the details.

Smoothing the legal path to fusion
03 Jul 2023
The second edition of the Fusion for Energy Contracting Professionals Roundtable took place at ITER Headquarters from 26 to 28 June 2023. The event, organized in collaboration with the International Nuclear Law Association (INLA) and the ITER Organization, focused on innovative legal thinking for successful fusion megaprojects.

During the three-day event, participants worked together to discuss and develop conditions for the successful delivery of fusion megaprojects. Themes such as contract strategies, forms of contract, nuclear liabilities, export control, insurance, competition law, public procurement law, intellectual property law and the regulation of fusion technologies were at the centre of the discussions. Approximately 300 participants from 20 countries took part.

See this report on the Fusion for Energy website.

JT-60SA: cooldown underway
03 Jul 2023
The JT-60SA tokamak—a joint program of fusion research and development agreed and co-financed by the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the government of Japan—has officially restarted operations, according to news posted to the JT-60SA website

On 30 May 2023, the team kicked off vacuum pumping operations to evacuate particles from the vacuum vessel and cryostat. Leak testing of the cryostat, cryostat helium pipes and vacuum vessel followed, before steps were taken to initiate magnet cooldown. The cooling of the JT-60SA magnets has been underway since 14 June and is proceeding steadily; you can follow progress on this webpage.

JT-60SA has been designed to support the operation of ITER by following a complementary research and development program, and to investigate how best to optimize the operation of fusion power plants that are built after ITER. Further details of its experimental program are explained in the JT-60SA Research Plan. During device commissioning in 2021, a short circuit at the terminals of one of the machine's largest poloidal field coils resulted in a period of assessment, analysis and repair. The restarting of the device is excellent news for the integrated project team and for the fusion community as a whole.

The ITER Podcast: Episode 5, Season 2
03 Jul 2023
In the latest episode of ITER Stories (Season 2, Episode 5), hear what it's like to move from abroad for the ITER Project ... from the point of view of five ITER spouses.

In "ITER Spouses, A Journey of Transformation," Mansi, Joke, Moon-Jeong, Zijin and Pieter speak about their experiences moving to Provence to support their spouses and their voyage into the ITER World. From raising children, to learning the ropes of living in Provence, rebuilding identities, and taking life into their own hands, they share thoughts that may be interesting to families who are considering a move to ITER in the future, other expats, or the simply curious.

Listen to the latest episode directly on the ITER website or through Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, PodBean, Spotify, or Tune In.

The people of ITER
28 Jun 2023
The 2022 Report on Human Resources offers the most recent snapshot of the human element of ITER. Who is behind the engineering, the science, and the day-to-day management and administration of the world's largest research collaboration?

ITER Organization staff grew by 3.3% in 2022 over the preceding year, reaching 1,069 members. European staff members represent 69% of the 2022 total, while staff from the six other Members is distributed as follows: China 8.1%, India 2.4%, Japan 3.6%, Korea 6.1%, Russia 7.2% and the United States 3.4%. Staff joined the project from all ITER Members in 2022, with the Human Resources Department fielding 3,098 applications for 111 newcomer recruitments. Of total appointments in 2022, 12.3% were women.

Just over 77% of ITER staff members have an advanced degree (Master's, engineering degree, or PhD). Women represent 18.6% of the staff body, and hold 9% of management positions. The average age of all staff is 45.3 years old (43.9 years for women, and 45.6 years for men). In 2022, global turnover was 7%, with 73 departures.

Nearly 80% of staff choses to live in either Aix-en-Provence (pop. 147,000) or Manosque (pop. 23,000), two of the larger towns in the ITER environment, and 75% have at least one dependent child. Nearly 70% of staff were rewarded in 2022 for performance, and 19.3% were promoted through contract renewal.

See all this granular detail and more in the 2022 ITER Organization Report on Human Resources here.

Latest ITER drone video
28 Jun 2023
Besides attending an ITER Open Doors Day, the best way to familiarize yourself with the ITER construction project is to watch our latest drone video. It takes you in and out of the buildings on site—including the tall Assembly Hall where ITER's some of ITER's largest components are viewable—and flies far overhead for an update on the latest site infrastructure achievements.

Watch it on the ITER website or YouTube.

Replay: The Limitless Potential of Fusion Energy
22 Jun 2023
The Energy Subcommittee of the US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology held a hearing on fusion energy on Tuesday 13 June 2023. 

Titled "From Theory to Reality: The Limitless Potential of Fusion Energy," the hearing focused on how this "history-changing energy source" is progressing from scientific experiment to commercial reality. 

Invited to speak before the Subcommittee members were: Kathryn McCarthy, Director, US ITER Project Office; David Kirtley, CEO, Helion Energy; Wayne Solomon, Vice President, Magnetic Fusion Energy, General Atomics; Andrew Holland, CEO, Fusion Industry Association; Scott Hsu, Senior Advisor and Lead Fusion Coordinator, US Department of Energy.

You can watch the full hearing in replay at this address (starts at 44:45).

The ITER Planet
06 Jun 2023
For your wall at home or in the office! Download an annotated photo of the ITER site—part of the annual ITER Planet brochure, featuring descriptions in English and French. Or, see this page of the ITER website for all the latest ITER Organization publications.

Download the ITER Planet brochure here.

Register: September magnet conference near ITER
05 Jun 2023
Registration for the 28th International Conference on Magnet Technology (MT-28) is open on line through 5 September 2023 on the conference website.

See all fee information here, including reductions for retired participants, students and one-day attendees. The registration fee includes access to the exhibition, all technical sessions, all poster sessions, and receptions.

The conference will take place in Aix-en-Provence, France (only 30 minutes from the ITER site) from 10 to 15 September 2023. ITER site visits will be organized.

To register to MT-28, see this link.

Huge growth ahead? Fusion supply chain report
05 Jun 2023
From a survey of 26 private fusion companies and 34 supplier companies, the Fusion Industry Association—a US-registered non-profit independent trade association for the acceleration of the arrival of fusion power—predicts a huge growth in demand for fusion suppliers over the coming years. 

Its report The Fusion Industry Supply Chain: Opportunities and Challenges calculates that from USD $500 million in 2022, the fusion supply chain is set to increase to over USD 7 billion by the time companies build their first-of-a-kind power plants. When the fusion industry reaches maturity, the supply chain is predicted to be worth trillions of dollars.

Seventy percent of fusion companies surveyed, however, said their suppliers see building the capacity to meet future demand as too risky without committed orders. "It is clear more long-term certainty is needed—through a mix of finance, regulation, risk-sharing mechanisms, and more communication—so suppliers are prepared to scale ahead of industry need."

Read the full report on the Fusion Industry Association website.

24-jour live online "Basic Sciences" event today
05 Jun 2023
The International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD), in partnership with UNESCO, is taking place this year on 5 June.

Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development is the ambitious program that the Member States of the United Nations have agreed on to ensure a balanced, sustainable and inclusive development of the planet.

Basic sciences have an important contribution to make to the implementation of this program. They provide the essential means to meet crucial challenges such as universal access to food, energy, health coverage and communication technologies. They enable us to understand the impact of the currently nearly 8 billion people on the planet and to act to limit, and sometimes even to reduce it: depletion of the ozone layer, climate change, depletion of natural resources, extinction of living species.

Applications of technology are easy to recognize. On the other hand, contributions of basic, curiosity-based, sciences are not well appreciated. They are nonetheless at the basis of major technological advances that stimulate innovation, as well as essential for training future professionals and for developing capacity of populations who can take part in decisions that affect their future. UNESCO is well aware of this: its Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers, revised in 2017, recalls the importance of bringing together politicians, scientists, diplomats, international organizations, entrepreneurs and every goodwill person.

The International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development, that we organize in 2022 and 2023, focuses on these links between basic sciences and the Sustainable Development Goals. This is a unique opportunity to convince all stakeholders that through a basic understanding of nature, actions taken will be more effective, for the common good.

ITER Head of Communication Laban Coblentz will be delivering a talk on "The ITER Project: collaborating on basic science for a new energy future" at 18:30 Paris time (CET).

Click here for the livestream. See all information about the IYBSSD event here.

The ITER Podcast: Episode 4, Season 2
30 May 2023
Episode 4 of The ITER World, ITER's second podcast miniseries, is now available.

What do a 14 year old in the south of France, a robot competition, and a scientist at a pioneering nuclear fusion experiment have in common? The love for coding and human collaboration!

In "ITER Robots: Connecting as Humans," host Kruti Mawani Fayot joins middle and high school students at the annual ITER Robots event, where they compete with Lego-based robots that have been designed and programmed to complete ITER-like handling tasks.

Listen to the latest episode directly on the ITER website or through the following channels: Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, PodBean, Spotify, and Tune In.  

Visit the podcast page of the ITER website for all Season 1 and Season 2 episodes.

Register now: FuseNet PhD event
30 May 2023
Join fellow fusion PhD candidates from all over Europe in August in Lausanne, Switzerland!

The annual PhD Event organized by the European Fusion Education Network, FuseNet, will take place this year at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

From 23 to 25 August, meet and greet fellow fusion researchers. The event will feature high-profile keynote speakers, a top-notch scientific program and the much anticipate PechaKucha contest, where students present their research in 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide.

See all information here. Register before 14 June 2023.

Fusion "myths" (video)
15 May 2023
Listen to physicist Hartmut Zohm from Germany's Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) as he addresses what in his view are the five most common misconceptions about fusion research: 1) Fusion energy is always 30 years away; 2) With the money flowing into fusion research right now, a fusion power plant can be built in 10 years; 3) Using alternative fuels circumvents all the challenges; 4) Your Q values are not correct; 5) In fusion research, every success is a breakthrough.

The 20-minute talk""5 Myths About Nuclear Fusion" is available in English and German.

The ITER Podcast: Episode 3, Season 2
05 May 2023
Episode 3 of The ITER World, ITER's second podcast miniseries, is now available.

"Falling for Fusion" features interviews with two young fusion enthusiasts who explain how they came to find out about fusion science and technology, how they joined the effort to increase the visibility of this very active field of research, and where they think fusion fits into the future.

Listen to the latest episode with host Kruti Mawani Fayot directly on the ITER website or through the following channels: Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, PodBean, Spotify, and Tune In.  

Visit the podcast page of the ITER website for all episodes.

EUROfusion Engineering Grants
02 May 2023
The European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, EUROfusion, has launched a call for 2024 EUROfusion Engineering Grants. These grants provide funding for up to twenty outstanding early-career engineers to conduct research projects starting in the first half of 2024. The EUROfusion grant will cover their salaries under the EUROfusion funding rules as well as contribute to their research activities and missions for the duration of two years.

EUROfusion encourages young engineers who are passionate about fusion research to apply for this opportunity. To be eligible, candidates must currently hold a Master's degree in engineering and have finished their degree within six years preceding the submission deadline. Interested candidates should jointly prepare their application with a EUROfusion consortium member or affiliated entity, who will submit the application and offer to employ the candidate for the proposed duration of the project.

Interested candidates are invited to attend the EUROfusion Training and Education Office's Q&A Information Session on Wednesday, 24 May 2023, at 14.00 CEST (connection details can be found on the EUROfusion wiki pages or requested by emailing EEG24application@euro-fusion.org).

The submission deadline is 5 June 2023. For all information, see these pages.

Introductory plasma physics course
02 May 2023
During the weeks of 5 to 15 June 2023, the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) will host a intensive virtual course on plasma physics and fusion energy sciences, taught by world-renowned scientists from various US and international institutions. The course is targeted at undergraduate students interested in plasma physics and fusion energy science and is open to the public at large.

Registration is free and participants who attend the full course will receive a certificate of completion.

The introductory course will be fully conducted via Zoom, and in half-day sessions (12PM-5PM EST) in order to accomodate various time zones.

The content will reflect the broad research under the fusion energy sciences and plasma physics umbrella, including discovery plasma sciences, magnetic fusion energy, fusion materials and technology, and high energy density plasmas.

See all information here.

A boot camp for climate change
24 Apr 2023
The third edition of "Education Boot Camp," organized by the Indian Youth Nuclear Society (IYNS) and Shiv Nadar School, Noida, attracted 2,000 participants from the Delhi region, from grade 5 through university. The goal? To raise awareness about sustainable development and climate change.

Over one month, participating students were asked to develop ideas to tackle the environmental challenge of their choice, and present them at the two-day culminating event on 20-21 April. Team Swachh Bin from the Shiv Nadar School won first prize with a project on waste management. 

Nintendra Singh, founder and president of the IYNS, founding board member of Women in Nuclear India (WiN-India), and current ITER Project Associate in the Tritium Breeding Blanket Section, was satisfied with the dedication and enthusiasm of the students. "The event was an excellent opportunity for students to learn and connect with industry experts and academia, and to connect with peers. The idea that it is necessary to find local—and innovative—solutions to global issues was very well assimilated."

Shira Tabachnikoff, Internal & Stakeholder Relations Manager at ITER and co-chair of the Women in Fusion network, participated in panels on women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) and shared the status of the ITER Project with students in high school and university.

INFUSED: Training and postdoc opportunities
24 Apr 2023
The INFUSED pages of the ITER Organization website are the place to go for students and teachers interested in educational resources in fusion science and technology. The resources have been developed all over the world, and are offered in many languages and formats.

At this time of year, it is also good to keep an eye on the INFUSED event calendar, where deadlines are fast approaching for summer training opportunities, specialized courses, and postdoctoral research grants.  

At the top of this page, click on "View all upcoming events" to see a list of opportunities through November. Click on the titles to find out more about application procedures and deadlines.

And for organizers, you can contact ITERCommunications@iter.org if you don't see your training opportunity listed in INFUSED.

FuseNet PhD event
18 Apr 2023
Join fellow fusion PhD candidates from all over Europe in August in Lausanne, Switzerland!

The annual PhD Event organized by the European Fusion Education Network, FuseNet, will take place this year at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

From 23 to 25 August, meet and greet fellow fusion researchers. The event will feature high-profile keynote speakers, a top-notch scientific program and the much anticipate PechaKucha contest, where students present their research in 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide.

See all information here. Register before 18 June 2023.

The ITER Podcast: Episode 2, Season 2
07 Apr 2023
Episode 2 of The ITER World, ITER's second podcast miniseries, is now available.

"Visiting Planet ITER" takes the listener into the heart of ITER's assembly activities, where visitors from France, Thailand and the Netherlands are discovering the project and sharing their views about ITER's goals and nuclear fusion energy overall. Kirsten Haupt, from the ITER visits team, lifts the veil on the popular ITER visitor program that attracted approximately 20,000 people last year, and nearly 200,000 since it started in 2007.

Listen to "Visiting Planet ITER" with host Kruti Mawani Fayot directly on the ITER website or through the following channels: Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, PodBean, SpotifyTune In and World Radio Paris.  

Visit the podcast page of the ITER website.

Apply to the JT-60SA International Fusion School
07 Apr 2023
The new JT-60SA International Fusion School (JIFS), jointly funded and organized by Japan's National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST) and EUROfusion, aims to prepare the next generation of fusion physicists and engineers from Japan and Europe by focusing on the main aspects of fusion research, from plasma physics to engineering, with special attention to their combination into tokamak operation.

School attendance is limited to 20 students—10 from Japan and 10 from Europe. The two-week program in Japan will include lectures, visits to JT-60SA, and practical exercises using JT-60SA laboratories and JT-60SA data, analysis and computational tools.

The first JT-60SA International Fusion School will take place from 4 to 15 September 2023. Registration ends 15 April 2023. For all information see this page.

EUROfusion Bernard Bigot Researcher Grants
07 Apr 2023
The European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, EUROfusion, has launched a call for applications for the next round of EUROfusion Bernard Bigot Researcher Grants, which will fund up to ten outstanding early-career researchers for research projects starting in the first half of 2024. The grants will cover their salaries and part of the cost of their research activities and missions for up to two years.

To be eligible, candidates must currently hold a PhD and have defended their doctoral thesis within the two years preceding the submission deadline. Interested candidates should jointly prepare their application with a EUROfusion consortium member, who will submit the application and offer to employ the candidate for the proposed duration of the project.

Interested candidates can join the EUROfusion Training and Education Office's Q&A Information Session on Wednesday, 19 April 2023, at 14.00 CET.

Further details on the overall procedure and the information session are provided on this website. The submission deadline is 28 April 2023.

--The Researcher Grants are named after Dr Bernard Bigot, Director-General of the ITER Organization from 2015 to 2022.

Publication: The global fusion state of play
27 Mar 2023
The European Commission, Directorate-General for Energy, has published the "Foresight study on the worldwide developments in advancing fusion energy, including the small scale private initiatives."

Commissioned from the consultancy Trinomics, the paper provides an analysis of the leading public and private fusion initiatives globally and uses the analysis to generate four foresight scenarios for fusion development to inform European Commission decision making on fusion.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of various fusion approaches? When can the next fusion devices be expected? What are the most optimistic and least optimistic estimations for the arrival of fusion power on the grid? What technical challenges remain? 

The 113-page document can be consulted free of charge at this link. (© European Union, 2023)

Can Nuclear Fusion Power the Future?
20 Mar 2023
It's the Holy Grail for limitless clean energy, but will nuclear fusion come soon enough to avoid the worst of the climate crisis?

As part of the Bloomberg series The Future with Hannah Fry, follow Episode 4, "Can Nuclear Fusion Power the Future?" as Hannah visits the ITER Project in southern France, checks in with an expert at Imperial College London on the economics of fusion, and flies to Los Angeles to witness a new generation of private start-ups racing to put fusion energy on the grid. 

Her hosts at ITER are Richard Pitts, head of the Experiments & Plasma Operation Section, and Sabina Griffith, from Communication.

Watch "Can Nuclear Fusion Power the Future?" here. Browse all episodes here.

ITER Talks | The Tritium Plant
13 Mar 2023
Join Ian Bonnett, ITER's Tritium Plant Section Leader, for a deep dive into the hydrogen isotope tritium—its particular characteristics, and how it will be used and recycled at ITER as part of a closed fuelling loop. A dedicated Tritium Plant at ITER contains all of the systems and sub-systems needed for safe tritium management.

Watch the eleventh episode of the ITER Talks here.

See the full ITER Talks playlist on YouTube.

MT-28: registration is open
13 Mar 2023
Registration for the 28th International Conference on Magnet Technology (MT-28) is open on the conference website beginning today, 13 March 2023.

See all fee information here, including reductions for retired participants, students and one-day attendees. The registration fee includes access to the exhibition, all technical sessions, all poster sessions, and receptions.

The conference will take place in Aix-en-Provence, France (only 30 minutes from the ITER site) from 10 to 15 September 2023.

To register to MT-28, see this link.

The ITER podcast: new episode released
10 Mar 2023
The ITER World, ITER's second podcast miniseries, debutes this week for International Women's Day with Episode 1: "The Women at ITER." It is available directly through the ITER website or through the following channels: Amazon MusicApple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPodBeanSpotifyTune In and World Radio Paris

Season 1 of the ITER podcast, All About ITER, took a look at what nuclear fusion is and how one of the largest, most complex science experiments on Earth is taking shape in the south of France.

Season 2 begins to orbit this world in order to understand its multifaceted inhabitants, their motivations and challenges. From hearing about their love for fusion, to meeting some of the women involved or gaining a first-hand perspective on what it's like to be a part of this extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime global project. Six episodes are planned, with host Kruti Mawani Fayot.

See the podcast page of the ITER website.

Fusion Industry School announced (CDT/UKAEA)
09 Mar 2023
The Fusion Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) have worked with the fusion community to prepare a two-week program created to meet the needs of the emerging fusion industry and associated supply chain companies and organizations.

The Fusion Industry School is a two-week interactive program of lectures from world-leading experts in fusion, aimed at providing an overview of the current progress and challenges to industry professionals. The school consists of lectures, networking sessions, panel discussions and Q&As as well as visits to the UKAEA national fusion facilities.

The first week (19-22 June 2023) takes place in York (UK) and focuses on the underpinning fusion science and technology. The second week (25-28 September 2023) in Oxfordshire (UK) builds on the first week, with more of an emphasis on engineering applications. The program is optimized for delegates attending both weeks, but there is still benefit to only attending one. No prior knowledge of fusion science and technology is necessary.

The target audience is: early and mid-career scientists, engineers and regulators.

See all information on the CDT website.

New! Women in Fusion mentoring program
09 Mar 2023
Women in Fusion—the one-year-old global platform established to highlight the role that women play in advancing cutting-edge research and technology in fusion and to promote networking and advocacy—has launched a new initiative: mentoring.

By connecting mentors with mentees, the Women in Fusion program aims to support women with backgrounds in science, engineering, legal or administration in all aspects of their career development, including goal setting, leadership, and work/life balance. Expand your network and foster your career growth as a mentee, or grow your leadership skills and assist an early-career professional as a mentor.

All details are available on this page of the Women in Fusion website.

2023 Culham Summer School announced
07 Mar 2023
The 60th Culham Plasma Physics Summer School will take place from 17 to 27 July 2023 at the Culham Science Centre in Oxfordshire (UK).

The aim of the Summer School is to provide an introduction to the fundamental principles of plasma physics, together with a broad understanding of its fields of application. It assumes no previous knowledge of the subject, but familiarity with electromagnetism and applied mathematics at first degree level would be helpful.

The 2023 school will cover fundamental plasma physics, as well as important topics in fusion, astrophysical, laser and low temperature plasmas. Lecturers are drawn from the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) together with leading European universities. All are renowned experts in their fields.

For more details and to apply visit the dedicated website. The deadline for applications is 19 June 2023.

MT-28: exhibition and sponsorship opportunities
06 Mar 2023
Visit the exhibition and sponsorship pages of the MT-28 website to find out more about participating as a company or an academic partner in this premier international forum for magnet-related technology and design. 

The 28th International Conference on Magnet Technology (MT-28), planned in Aix-en-Provence, France, during the week of 10 to 15 September 2023, is a unique opportunity to reach the superconducting magnet community, industry, and students and researchers. Multiple exhibition and sponsorship opportunities are available.

For all information, see the MT-28 website.

Europe: Technology Transfer Award 2023
03 Mar 2023
The European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy, seeks to reward the commercial use of fusion technologies in non-fusion markets. Its Technology Transfer Award 2023, open to European companies and organizations, comes with a prize of EUR 10,000.

The Technology Transfer Award competition aims to encourage and promote projects where a fusion technology or know-how is used or is planned to be used outside of fusion applications.

Applications will be evaluated according to the resources and efforts deployed by the candidate to achieve commercial use of the technology in a non-fusion market, as well as the socio-economic impact of the project on the market. 

Applications are open from 1 February 2023 to 19 May 2023 at this link.

Toward an Arab Initiative for Fusion Energy
17 Feb 2023
Under the patronage of H.R.H. Prince El Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan, the Al Hussein Technical University cordially invites you to a join a webinar that it is organizing on 8 March 2023.

The webinar, titled "Towards an Arab Initiative for Fusion Energy," will feature speakers Tim Luce, Chief Scientist at ITER; Prof. Tony Donné, CEO of EUROfusion; Prof. Sir Steven Cowley, Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL); and Andrew Holland, CEO of the Fusion Industry Association.

Scan the QR code on the poster at right or click here to sign up.

MT-28: abstract submission extended
16 Feb 2023
The 28th International Conference on Magnet Technology (MT-28) will be held in Aix-en-Provence, France, during the week of 10 to 15 September 2023. The scientific program of MT-28—the preeminent international forum for magnet-related technology and design—will cover fusion, high-energy physics, power engineering and medical diagnosis. 

The deadline for submitting abstracts has been extended to 6 March 2023.

Don't miss the opportunity to submit your abstract now!

PhDiaFusion 2023 announced
14 Feb 2023
Organized every two years by CEA Cadarache (France) and the Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN (Poland), the PhDiaFusion Summer School of Plasma Diagnostics is designed for graduate students and their tutors in the spirit of a "master and apprentice" approach.

Diagnostic measurements are essential in plasma experiments to infer the relevant plasma properties, both for physical interpretation and for real-time control. In modern fusion devices such as ITER, DEMO, or the DONES neutron facility, the huge amount of generated data may require fast and efficient processes to infer the physical quantities with a reasonable computational cost. The use of artificial intelligence can be of a great help to achieve this goal by feeding learning systems with experimental data and/or simulation results.

The 2023 edition of the PhDiaFusion Summer School will cover diagnostics data processing, interpretation, validation and real-time control aspects with a focus on artificial intelligence methods.

Join us for the next edition of PhDiaFusion from 19 to 23 June 2023 on the topic of "Artificial Intelligence for Plasma Diagnostics and Controlled Fusion." 

Register on line by 15 May 2023. See all information on this page

Commonwealth Fusion Systems opens 50-acre campus
13 Feb 2023
With a ceremonial event on 10 February, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) officially opened its new 50-acre campus in Devens, Massachusetts (USA). 

The campus is home to the company's corporate headquarters, an advanced manufacturing facility, and the building dedicated to SPARC—a compact 100 MW magnetic confinement fusion experiment now under construction.

CFS spun out of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center as a private company in 2018 and is backed by more than $2 billion from the world's leading investors in clean energy.

Attending the event on campus were US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, US Senator Elizabeth Warren, US Senator Edward Markey, and US Representative Lori Trahan, Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, with other state and local leaders.

See the full news story here.

360° tour updated (January 2023)
13 Feb 2023
The virtual tour of ITER construction has been updated with 360° photos from January 2023. Enter the main ITER plant buildings or the machine assembly theatre to see what has changed since the last update in April 2022.

Accessible from the home page of the ITER website (yellow icon) or by clicking on the link below.

Click here to enter the latest 360° ITER virtual tour.

Fusion for Energy appoints new Director
10 Feb 2023
The Governing Board of Fusion for Energy (F4E), the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy, has appointed Marc Lachaise as Director.

Carlos Alejaldre, Chair of the F4E Governing Board, thanked all delegates for their cooperation and congratulated Marc Lachaise on their behalf. "We look forward to working with you in order to lead Europe's contribution to ITER, and its participation in various fusion projects aiming to demonstrate the full potential of this energy source."

Trained in engineering, Marc Lachaise worked for 27 years as part of the French EDF Group (Électricité de France), where most recently he was Deputy Head of Department for Nuclear Procurement (2015), then Contract Manager Director of the EDF Group (2018), and Supply Chain Control Director in the newly formed assurance function for the EDF New Build nuclear projects (2021).

"It is an honour to be appointed Director of Fusion for Energy and I promise to lead this organization and its staff with commitment, integrity and a truly collaborative spirit. During my career I have worked in the field of energy, building experience on management, supply chain, and big nuclear projects. I'm ready to offer my expertise to the fusion community because I'm truly convinced of its potential. The responsibility bestowed on me is also an opportunity to honour Europe's contribution to ITER, empower teams, and collaborate with our partners to deliver ITER."

Read the full report on the Fusion for Energy website.

The Road to 2050: fusion and other game changers
10 Feb 2023
"Science and technology have the potential to solve some of the most critical issues of our time, to improve our lives, and to inspire our curiosity about the world around us." 

This conviction, from the Franklin Institute's mission statement, animated the production of the Institute's new six-part documentary series, "The Road to 2050," where some of the world's top innovators take the viewer on a journey of exploration into the future, covering everything from environmental challenges to off-world expansion and the exciting possibilities of jetpacks and teleportation. 

Shira Tabachnikoff, ITER's Internal & Stakeholder Relations Manager, features in part two of the docuseries: "Act 2: Energy of the Future." Moving toward a world that is increasingly electrified, new, cleaner sources of energy will be needed. Fusion is one of the potential solutions, and minds around the world are working to make it happen. 

Access the full series on YouTube at this address.

(The 200-year-old Franklin Institute is a centre for science education and development located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.)

 

FuseNet Master Thesis Prize
31 Jan 2023
To stimulate excellence in fusion research, the European Fusion Education Network FuseNet awards the Master Thesis Prize to students who write outstanding Master's theses that were carried out and completed across Europe. The prizes serve as an acknowledgement of the excellent and important research that is carried out by fusion students.

The application period has been extended to 10 February 2023. To nominate your best students of the past year, please fill out the submission form at this address

For more information about the Master Thesis Prize 2022, see the FuseNet website.

Recent TEDx talks on fusion
30 Jan 2023
Worth watching: two recent TEDx talks featuring fusion and ITER.

In the first, "Why should we make a star on Earth?" EUROfusion's Tony Donné, explains the advantages of fusion--a baseload source clean and safe energy, power dense, requiring only small amounts of fuel and a small footprint for reactor construction, and without any long-lived radioactive waste. He touches on recent accomplishments in the field and the large numbers of industrial spinoffs that have already resulted from investment in fusion research.

In the second, "Entering the Fusion Energy Delivery Era," JET's Head of Operations Joe Milnes outlines a bright future for fusion, taking the audience from recent milestones in the fusion world to the turbo-charged current state of play and his hope for a fusion future, where all countries can build reactors based on fuels that are accessible to all. What are the breakthrough technologies that will help us access fusion electricity? What challenges still remain?

MT-28: Student program announced
30 Jan 2023
The 28th International Conference on Magnet Technology (MT-28) will be hosted by the ITER Organization and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in Aix-en-Provence, France, during the week of 10 to 15 September 2023

The MT-28 Local Organizing Committee (LOC) team has planned a dynamic student program to make MT-28 a moment to remember for all participating students. There are grant opportunities, short courses and workshops, best paper awards, recruitment and career opportunities, and fun extracurricular events.

See this page for a description of all student events and opportunities.

And a reminder to all: abstract submission is open now through 20 February 2023.

The Financial Times on fusion
23 Jan 2023
In Fusion Power: How Close Are We?, Simon Mundy from the Financial Times introduces his viewers to the quest for fusion energy, described as "one of the hottest and most controversial topics within the push for clean energy."

Through interviews with scientists, engineers and investors in the United Kingdom, the United States and France—including Director-General Pietro Barabaschi, Head of Science Tim Luce, and Postdoctoral Fellow Valentina Nikolaeva from ITER—Mundy captures the growing enthusiasm for the potential of fusion energy, as national labs reach milestones and investment in the field from both public and private sources is growing.

Watch the 28-minute documentary here.

Register for Episode 4 of the IAEA's "Breakthroughs" series
11 Jan 2023
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) organizes regular webinars focusing on the latest breakthroughs and landmark achievements announced in fusion R&D. The series aims to give an overview and put in perspective ground-breaking results, to understand how such progress brings fusion energy closer to realization.

In the next episode (#4) on 19 January 2023, experts from the US DOE Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) National Ignition Facility (NIF) will present results from its recent historic fusion breakthrough—scientific energy gain for the first time in a fusion experiment.

Follow this link to register.

Doctoral program APPLAuSE: apply by 3 February
11 Jan 2023
The Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear (IPFN) invites applications for its Doctoral Program in Plasma Science and Engineering, APPLAuSE, from eligible candidates by 3 February 2023 (for a September 2023 start, full time).

Successful applicants, up to a maximum of three, will benefit from a four-year doctoral scholarship supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. The official language of APPLAuSE is English.

For more information and to apply, see this IPFN webpage.

Reminder: Submit your abstract for MT-28
09 Jan 2023
The 28th International Conference on Magnet Technology (MT-28) will be held in Aix-en-Provence, France, during the week of 10 to 15 September 2023. Abstract submission is open through 20 February 2023.

For the first time in four years, the MT-28—the international forum for magnet-related technology and design—will bring participants together in person. The conference offers all participants increased networking opportunities and interactive sessions.

The lead areas of the scientific program are fusion, high-energy physics, power engineering and medical diagnosis. In addition to plenary debates we offer opportunities for exchanges with industries and for career management. An industrial exhibition, an active program for students, as well as opportunities to visit the nearby ITER site will round out the event.

Don't miss this opportunity to submit your abstract now!

The MT-28 Local Organizing Committee
(mt28@iter.org)

Apply now to the FUSION-EP Master's program
03 Jan 2023
Applications are open through 15 February 2023 for the next wave of the FUSION-EP Master's program (September 2023 start). Scholarships are available to top-ranked candidates. 

The ideal candidate has, or is in the process of obtaining, a Bachelor's degree or recognized equivalent (minimum 3 years of study, 180 ECTS or more) in physics or engineering (nuclear, materials, chemical, electrical). Students from all countries can apply. The program language is English.

The FUSION-EP program aims to train the next generations of magnetic confinement fusion physicists and engineers. It offers high-level, multinational, research-oriented education in fusion-related engineering or physics in close relation to the research activities of the partners, including the ITER Organization.

More information about the program can be found on the dedicated website. To apply, click here.

See the 2022 IAEA survey of fusion devices
03 Jan 2023
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has just released its 2022 worldwide survey of public and private fusion devices that are currently in operation, under construction or in the planning stages.

The publication, which lists just over 130 devices/projects, is intended to complement and further elaborate on the IAEA's online database, the Fusion Device Information System (FusDIS). Together, they provide a global overview of fusion research and development activities from the perspective of device capabilities.

Download the pdf of the "World Survey of Fusion Devices 2022" or order a printed copy at this address.

2022

Apply now for an ITER internship
13 Dec 2022
The ITER Organization has opened its 2023 internship program with the publication of 66 offers on the ITER website. These opportunities are geared toward undergraduate and postgraduate students, with a broad array of topics across scientific, technical and support departments. Applicants must hold a passport from one of the countries participating in the ITER Project (the People's Republic of China, the European Union, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the USA).

See this page to apply before 15 February 2023 (or 1 January 2023 for internships beginning in Q1 2023).

An ITER stop on the highway to the Alps
12 Dec 2022
There are many ways to promote ITER and to reach out to the general public: Open Doors Days, site visits, exhibitions, conferences, publications, press interviews...

The year 2022 saw all of the above in terms of ITER Organization outreach, and one newcomer was added to the list—an outdoor exhibit at a rest stop on highway A51 north of the ITER site.

Organized in a circle, five large exterior panels tell the story of fusion energy and ITER through written and interactive content (through QR codes). For the thousands and thousands who travel the road heading north toward the Alps, it is a reminder that the region is home to a major international scientific collaboration that is building the world's largest tokamak. 

The exhibit was inaugurated on 12 December in the presence of the local authorities, representatives for Vinci Autoroutes (highway) and Argedis TotalEnergies (service station), and Head of the ITER Engineering Domain Alain Bécoulet.

--Left to right: Damien Laffon de Colonges, Vinci Autoroutes Director, south-east region; Jerome Dubois, Mayor of Volx; and ITER Alain Bécoulet.

12th ITER International School: registration is open
08 Dec 2022
Registration is open now for the 12th ITER International School, which will be held from 26 to 30 June 2023 in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Hosted by Aix-Marseille University, the 2023 school will address a particularly timely and multidisciplinary topic—"The Impact and Consequences of Energetic Particles on Fusion Plasmas." Plasma self-heating by fusion-born alpha-particles, the influence of energetic particles on stability, how to diagnose energetic particle transport and loss, and the understanding of runaway electrons are all part of the planned scientific program.

Click here to see the School website and for further information about registration.

--Cutting-edge predictive simulation with the ORB5 code [T. Hayward-Schneider] showing a fast ion driven instability (n=12 Toroidal Alfvén Eigenmode) in ITER.

Abstract submission opens for MT-28
07 Dec 2022
The 28th International Conference on Magnet Technology (MT-28) will be held in Aix-en-Provence, France, during the week of 10 to 15 September 2023. Abstract submission is open now through 20 February 2023.

MT-28 is the major international forum for magnet-related technology and design. Conference aims are threefold: to diffuse into the scientific community information about new applications for magnets; to encourage an exchange between research activities and industrial applications; and to encourage professional scientists and engineers to follow careers in magnets. It will be supported in 2023 by the fusion project ITER, with opportunities to visit the nearby ITER site and see the huge ITER superconducting magnets in various stages of manufacturing and assembly.

The foundation of the conference remains the scientific program, with conference presenters having the opportunity to submit papers to a special edition of the prestigious IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity (impact factor > 1.9). 

Please see this website for abstract submission.

ITER featured on the Italian channel RAI
07 Dec 2022
Follow the RAI team as it discovers the ITER Project through the eyes of three Italian members of ITER staff: Federico Forunato, a Section Leader in the Field Engineering Installation Division; Mario Merola, Head of the Plant Construction Department; and Sergio Orlandi, Head of the Engineering Design Department.

The 4-minute feature "Fusione nucleare," which aired on the RAI2 TV show Re Start on 21 November 2022, can be seen in replay at this address.

 

FuseNet Master's Thesis Prize 2022
07 Dec 2022
Thesis supervisors are invited to nominate a student for the 2022 FuseNet Master Thesis Prize by 1 February 2023.

FuseNet will award the prizes to students who write outstanding Master's theses that were (at least partially) carried out and completed across Europe. The prizes serve to highlight the important research that is carried out by dedicated and talented fusion students.

See more about the 2021 winners here.

Learn more about the nomination process on the FuseNet website.

Tree lighting ceremony
05 Dec 2022
The ITER community gathers on 2 December around the Christmas tree offered by ITER's neighbours and hosts, the town of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance. At the foot of the tree is the Provençal crèche, with the traditional nativity scene plus figures that depict village life such as The Mayor, The Lace-Maker, The Apothecary, and the Shepherd (bowing into the fierce Mistral wind). A tree has been delivered to the ITER Organization by the town of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance for 11 consecutive years—ever since ITER Headquarters opened in 2012.

--From left to right: Eisuke Tada, Deputy of the Director-General; Romain Buchaut, Mayor of Saint Paul; and Laban Coblentz, Head of Communication.

EUROfusion research grants awarded
28 Nov 2022
EUROfusion grant programs aim to promote the education and training of a new generation of scientists and engineers in the fusion field.

EUROfusion Engineering Grants (EEG) are open to early career engineers within three years after their Master or PhD (or six years if relevant professional (industry) experience can be demonstrated). They enable selected candidates to specialize in a EUROfusion-relevant engineering topic.

EUROfusion research grants (ERG)—now renamed the EUROfusion Bernard Bigot Researcher Grants in honour of the former ITER Director-General—are attributed at postdoctoral level or equivalent to develop innovative ideas and techniques to advance EUROfusion's Roadmap to Fusion Energy.

The results of the latest campaign have just been announced by EUROfusion, with a total of 22 beneficiaries.

Click to read about the awardees under the EEG and ERG programs.

Following repairs, JT-60SA commissioning to restart in 2023
28 Nov 2022
The JT-60SA tokamak—a joint program of fusion research and development agreed and co-financed by the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the government of Japan—could restart cooldown operations and coil energization as early as March 2023, according to an article published by Fusion for Energy (Barcelona), the implementing agency for Euratom.

In 2021, a short circuit at the terminals of one of the machine's largest poloidal field coils had necessitated a pause in commissioning and a thorough assessment and analysis. One year of repair and further testing is now behind the joint Japan-Europe team, and plans are being laid for the restart of commissioning and possible first plasma next year.

See the full report on the Fusion for Energy website

ITER Talks | The ITER Test Blanket Module Program
21 Nov 2022
ITER will procure the tritium fuel necessary for its research program from the global inventory. But the fusion power reactors of the future will have to produce all of the tritium fuel they require for operation from within their own vessels.

ITER's Tritium Breeding Module (TBM) Program, involving the ITER Organization and all seven ITER Members, is a research activity that will run in parallel to the main ITER research program. In this latest ITER Talk, Luciano Giancarli, head of the Tritium Breeding Blanket System Section, explains how ITER will provide a unique opportunity to test the feasibility of tritium breeding. 

First, he walks us through the principles behind tritium breeding—what a breeding blanket looks like, how to achieve it in principle, and in practice, and what are the potential candidates for breeding blanket materials. Next, he delves into the ITER TBM Program, which aims to test complete tritium breeding blanket mockups in reactor-relevant conditions. Space allocations in the machine and four initial TBM concepts have already been decided.

Finally, he describes the objectives of the test program and how they fit into the ITER Research Plan.

Watch the tenth episode of ITER Talks here.


See the full ITER Talks playlist on YouTube here.

2021-2022 photobook: JAPAN Edition
21 Nov 2022
The Japanese Domestic Agency has released a JAPAN Edition of the 2021-2022 ITER Organization photobook.

The main difference from the original? A significantly expanded gallery of manufacturing photos from Japan. See pages 76 to 90 for an idea of the broad expertise and knowhow that ITER Japan suppliers are bringing to bear in completing their commitments to the ITER Project.

Powerful gyrotron devices, robotic manipulators, advanced diagnostics, precise divertor targets, superconducting magnets ... view, or download, the JAPAN Edition of the 2021-2022 ITER Organization photobook here.

Watch the COP27 panel discussion "Fusion: Clean Energy for All"
15 Nov 2022
Tuesday 15 November was Energy Day at the COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and fusion was part of the discussion through a panel called "Fusion: Clean Energy for All" (UNFCCC Pavilion).

The one-hour discussion was hosted by Gabriela Hearst, Creative Director of Chloé, and moderated by Jane Hotchkiss of the NGO Energy for the Common Good. Invited panelists were: Tim Bestwick, Chief Technical Officer at the UKAEA; David Livingston, Senior Advisor in the office of US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry; Jennifer Ganten, Chief Movement Builder at Commonwealth Fusion Systems (US); and Jessie Barton, Communications Lead at Helion Energy (US).

You can watch the full replay of the discussion here.

Open call: Fusion technology transfer award
14 Nov 2022
If you are a European company registered in a Fusion for Energy (F4E) member country, you can apply by 17 February 2023 to F4E's Technology Transfer Fusion Demonstrator Project Award.

The award (EUR 35,000) will go to a company that sees a use for its fusion technology outside of the traditional fusion market. 

In collaboration with In Extenso Innovation Croissance, Fusion for Energy seeks to unleash your entrepreneurial potential by helping you to carry out a project that integrates a fusion technology in a non-fusion application.

To read more about the requirements and guidelines, see this open call.

For more information about F4E's Technology Transfer Marketplace, click here.

ITER @ Falling Walls, Berlin
14 Nov 2022
For three days every year, the Falling Walls Science Summit in Berlin invites some of the most important researchers and thinkers of the day to discuss "Which are the next walls to fall in science and society?" with global leaders in science, politics, business, and the media.

During the 2022 edition, a panel titled "Advances in Fusion Technology/Breakthrough in Unlimited Energy Generation" was animated by Constantin Häfner, Managing Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT; Peter Leibinger, Vice Chairman and CTO of TRUMPF (high-tech manufacturing solutions); ITER's Chief Scientist Tim Luce; and Vinod Philip, Member of the Executive Board of Siemens Energy. The discussion was moderated by plasma physicist Melanie Windridge, Founder of Fusion Energy Insights

The main takeaway of the 50-minute discussion was that fusion energy should no longer be considered a "technology of the future." Just as mature science is converging with increasingly powerful technologies such as AI and computer modelling, there is a real interest—and real investment—by governments and the private sector. It is a good time for industry to get involved, both from the point of view of helping to solve the technical challenges that remain and for the kind of long-term visionary bets that can help accelerate the emergence of a fusion industry.  

Replay the livestream of the event on the Falling Walls website here (from 6:26:50 to 7:18:16).

12th ITER International School announced for June 2023
08 Nov 2022
The 12th ITER International School will be held from 26 to 30 June 2023, hosted by Aix-Marseille University in Aix-en-Provence, France.

The subject of the 2023 school is "The Impact and Consequences of Energetic Particles on Fusion Plasmas" with a scientific program coordinated by Simon Pinches (ITER Organization). As the start of ITER operations approaches, it is timely to address this multidisciplinary topic that includes plasma self-heating by fusion-born alpha-particles, the influence of energetic particles on stability, diagnosing energetic particle transport and loss, and understanding runaway electrons.

Click here for further information on the 2023 school. Find out more about past schools here.

--Cutting-edge predictive simulation with the ORB5 code [T. Hayward-Schneider] showing a fast ion driven instability (n=12 Toroidal Alfvén Eigenmode) in ITER.

Two new European Commission videos on fusion and ITER
03 Nov 2022
The European Commission's DG ENER (unit D4) has produced two new videos on ITER and fusion. The first (ITER - Technology) focuses on European Union investment in fusion over the years and explains the basic principles of fusion; the second (ITER - Ecology) showcases fusion as a possible future source of clean, efficient and reliable energy.

Watch ITER-Technology here.
Watch ITER-Ecology here.
See all language versions on this page.

ITER wins "Construction Story of the Year" award
03 Nov 2022
The B1M, a popular video channel for construction, architecture and engineering, and the Nemetschek Group, a leading software providers for the same industries, named ITER as the Construction Story of the Year award on 2 November 2022 in Munich.

The expert judging panel was "particularly impressed by the extraordinary levels of collaboration between the construction team, and the scheme's propensity to inspire future generations of engineers."

"ITER is a remarkable project that impressively demonstrates what the construction industry is able to achieve. The team has come together collaborating across international borders working on a massive project scale inspiring this and future generations of engineers and all roles contributing to our built world. The project team has proven that working together knows no bounds—regardless of segment, trade or project size, amazing goals can be realized," said Don Jacob, VP Technology and Innovation, Build & Construct Division at the Nemetschek Group.

The Construction Story of the Year program aims to highlight the world's most impressive and inspiring construction stories, seeking out amazing projects, ideas or initiatives that show the best of the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. It aims particularly to highlight innovation in the construction industry and projects that represent its digital transformation. 

Read press releases from The B1M and the Nemetschek Group.

See the video published about ITER by The B1M channel in April 2022.

--Jens Reich, Head of ITER's Vessel Delivery and Assembly Division (centre) at the ceremony in Munich on 2 November 2022, alongside The B1M founder Fred Mills (left) and Nemetschek's VP of Technology and Innovation, Build and Construct Division, Don Jacob (right).

New partnership on fusion energy education and training
02 Nov 2022
The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently signed an agreement to forge a partnership to strengthen education, training, and outreach programs in nuclear fusion research all over the world.

Steve Cowley, PPPL director, and Mikhail Chudakov, IAEA deputy director general and head of the Department of Nuclear Energy, signed the agreement at the 66th IAEA General Conference on Sept. 28 in Vienna.

The goal of the program is to help train the next generation of scientists, engineers and technicians who can contribute to develop fusion energy as a clean, green and plentiful source of electricity, Cowley said. The IAEA, which is based in Vienna, is the world organization for intergovernmental cooperation in the nuclear field, with 175 member states.

See the full announcement on the PPPL website.

 

New partner from Norway for EUROfusion
25 Oct 2022
The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) has joined the EUROfusion consortium as an associate partner.

UiT's dedicated plasma research centre in Tromsø, DYNAMO, has collaborated for years with European fusion labs on stand-alone projects. With UiT's associate membership comes an observer status in EUROfusion's decision making body and full access to the consortium's research data and facilities such as jointly operated fusion devices and computing centres.

See the full announcement on the EUROfusion website.

General Atomics announces a pilot fusion plant
24 Oct 2022
General Atomics, the American company that operates the DIII-D National Fusion Facility for the US Department of Energy, announced plans on 20 October 2022 for a steady-state, compact fusion power plant based on an advanced tokamak design.

According to Wayne Solomon, Vice President of Magnetic Fusion Energy at General Atomics, the company's practical approach to a fusion power plant (FPP) is "...the culmination of more than six decades of investments in fusion research and development, the experience we have gained from operating the DIII-D National Fusion Facility..., and the hard work of countless dedicated individuals. This is a truly exciting step towards realizing fusion energy."

The facility would utilize the company's proprietary Fusion Synthesis Engine (FUSE) to enable engineers, physicists, and operators to rapidly perform a broad range of studies and continuously optimize the power plant for maximum efficiency. General Atomics has also developed an advanced modular concept (GAMBL) for the breeding blanket which is a critical component (of the fusion power facility) that breeds tritium, a fusion energy fuel source, to make the fusion fuel cycle self-sufficient.

Read the full press release here.

FuseNet Master Event: sign up now
24 Oct 2022
The second edition of the FuseNet Master Event will take place on Tuesday 22 November 2022. The event will be held fully online on the Gathertown platform. All master's students in fusion-related fields are invited to join the event.

The day is filled with interesting talks by top scientists, introductions to fusion start-ups and ITER-related companies, and chances to meet your fellow students. Are you currently a fusion or plasma physics master student, or are you starting next academic year? Looking for an opportunity to meet the community and learn more about this fascinating subject? This event is for you.

More information on the program can be found on the registrations page. See you there!

ITER Talks | The Integrated Control System
24 Oct 2022
"The ITER control system performs the functional integration of the ITER plant and enables integrated and automated operation."

With the ninth talk in the series, we have the opportunity to take a deep dive into a less familiar part of the ITER Project—integrated control. Without it, the vast plant and the machine itself couldn't operate. System by system, what are the requirements? How has the overall architecture been designed? What protocols are respected by the software? What special role for the safety control system? And finally, what is the status on site?

Anders Wallander—Head of the ITER Controls Division—is our guide to "the brain of ITER."

Watch the ninth episode of ITER Talks here.


See the full ITER Talks playlist on YouTube here.

 

Applications open: Fusion Research Fellowships
20 Oct 2022
The UK Atomic Energy Authority is accepting applications now through 16 December 2022 for its Fusion Research Fellowships. These aim to appoint outstanding scientists or engineers who have recently completed (or will soon complete) a doctorate to a two-year research fellowship in any field of fusion research. Fellowships start in summer of 2023 and can be based at either UKAEA's Culham or Rotherham site.

For more details and to apply, see https://careers.ukaea.uk/job/ukaea-fusion-research-fellow/.  Any queries, please contact Chris Warrick at chris.warrick@ukaea.uk

Fusion for Energy appoints new ad interim Director
10 Oct 2022
Following the appointment of Pietro Barabaschi as Director-General of the ITER Organization, the Governing Board of the European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy (F4E) has appointed his replacement. Mr Barabaschi had been Acting Director of Fusion for Energy since June 2022. 

Jean-Marc Filhol is the new Fusion for Energy Director ad interim beginning 16 October 2022 and until the formal appointment of the new Director.

In thanking the members of the Governing Board for their trust, Jean-Marc Filhol highlighted his priorities for this interim period: "I will work together with the rest of the Senior Team to ensure a smooth operation of F4E and preserve a peaceful working environment for all staff, to support the new ITER Organization Director-General in the restructuring of the ITER project and the integration of ITER Organization and F4E, and to prepare the ground for the new F4E Director."

A French national, Mr Filhol has been with F4E since August 2011 and has occupied several senior management positions as Head of ITER Department and Head of ITER-Programme Department. In his role of European Domestic Agency representative in the ITER project since 2015, he has represented F4E to the ITER Organization and Domestic Agencies, in the Executive Project Board, and at other ITER governance bodies.

See the original report at Fusion for Energy.

FUSION22 Conference: Sign up to attend on line
27 Sep 2022
On Tuesday 18 October 2022, the London Science Museum will host FUSION22: The World Needs Fusion Energy. This hybrid event, which can be attended on line or in person, will showcase the incredible developments taking place in fusion all over the world. 

Why do we need fusion energy? How will fusion change the world? What is the path to commercial fusion? What innovations are needed? What benefits from fusion R&D and spinoff technologies for your business? What does investing in fusion look like? (See the full agenda here.)

"Whether you're coming to fusion energy for the first time or have been involved in its development since the beginning, you'll find engaging, thought provoking and insightful sessions to fit your needs," say the organizers of the event. 

The event is free. See this website to register to attend on line.

European Fusion Teacher Day: 14 October
21 Sep 2022
The European Fusion Education Network, FuseNet, is organizing its third annual European Fusion Teacher Day on 14 October 2022. Open to all secondary school science and physics teachers in Europe, the fully virtual event aims to introduce educators to nuclear fusion and demonstrate how the subject can be taught in school. The ultimate goal is to increase exposure of students to the subject at the secondary level in order to spark interest and enthusiasm in the field.

Because the event is open to educators across Europe, the half-day program begins with local sessions via Zoom on what is going on in the field of fusion in your geographical zone. After the local sessions, participants will come together for a global livestream with presentations by keynote speakers and the distribution of free educational resources. The ITER Organization is one of the featured participants during the global livestream. 

Participation is free and registration is open now. Register before 1 October here.


SOFT Innovation Prize: three researchers awarded
20 Sep 2022
On 19 September, the European Commission revealed the winners of the 2022 edition of the SOFT Innovation Prize. This prize, awarded at the 32nd Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT2022), gives recognition to outstanding researchers or industries who have found innovative ideas or proposed new solutions in fusion research.

This year's winners are:

First prize (€50,000): GRATUL (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Forschungszentrum Jülich) for the development of plasma sprayed, functionally graded tungsten/EUROFER coating as protective for the first wall of future fusion power plants. This technology was successfully transferred to industry, achieving a new record in coating large first wall mockups. The functional grading, which led to outstanding heat flux resistance, opens up the potential deployment of this innovation in other components of fusion technology, in high-voltage components, and in the concentrated solar power sector.

Second prize (€30,000): D1SUNED (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, UNED) for the development of an improved radiation transport code for dose rate evaluation in fusion application. Due to their high energy, fusion neutrons are penetrating deeply in the facility producing direct and indirect radiation fields whose evaluation is a challenging task. The D1SUNED provides a powerful tool to calculate and analyze these radiation fields required for safety and radioprotection studies that must be addressed properly during the design phase to secure successful licensing.

Third prize (€20,000): Dia Disk (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Diamond Materials GmbH) for the development of diamond window technology in high-power microwave applications as a vacuum barrier and confinement barrier for hazardous materials. The achieved higher disk diameter results in a substantially increased energy efficiency of the deposition process of diamond.

See the full announcement here.

Top ITER scientist testifies at US Senate Committee
20 Sep 2022
On 15 September 2022, the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a "Hearing on the Federal Government's Role in Supporting the Commercialization of Fusion Energy."

The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Joe Manchin, had visited the ITER Project in France in March 2022. He opened the meeting by evoking the visit, saying that it left him "profoundly reflective of the potential of [fusion] technology to transform our energy future." The purpose of the hearing was to hear from a panel of experts on what they are doing to bring this "exciting technology" to fruition and to ask: What can the federal government do to help?

On the witness panel was: Dr Scott Hsu, Lead Fusion Coordinator, Office of the Undersecretary for Science and Innovation, Department of Energy; Professor Steven Cowley, Director, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; Dr. Tim Luce, Chief Scientist and Head of the Science & Operation Domain at the ITER Organization; Dr. Bob Mumgaard, CEO and Co-Founder, Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

You can watch the archived webcast here.

You can access the testimony of Tim Luce here.

SOFT conference opens in Dubrovnik
19 Sep 2022
The 32nd annual Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT) has opened in the Croatian city Dubrovnik. 

The biennial symposium on fusion technology is the most important conference in the field in Europe, bringing together scientists, engineers, industry representatives and exhibitors from all over the world and focusing on the latest developments in fusion experiments and activities. SOFT includes invited, oral and poster presentations, as well as industry and R&D exhibitions.

SOFT 2022 is organized by the Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI) from 18-23 September in a hydrid format. ITER's Alain Bécoulet, Head of the Engineering Domain, opened the first plenary session on Monday 19 September with a talk on the status of ITER procurement and assembly. During a satellite event in the afternoon, the SOFT 2022 Industry Day, numerous business opportunities in fusion for European industry were presented by representatives of the ITER Organization, Fusion for Energy (F4E), EUROfusion, and the Consorcio IFMIF-DONES España.

The ITER Organization is present throughout the week with the ITER stand. In this photo, the newly appointed ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi (right) is at the stand with Alain Bécoulet.

See the conference website for more about SOFT 2022.

An award for Sergio Orlandi, given and received in Latin
19 Sep 2022
Sergio Orlandi's mastery of Latin—a language he considers "more perfect than mathematics"—proved precious when, on 15 September, he was awarded an Honorary Professorship from the University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Poland.

In Poland, Latin is the language universities use in such circumstances. The Rector of the University pronounced his speech in Latin, Sergio's laudation was issued in Latin, and it is in Latin that the Head of the ITER Plant Construction Department responded.

What connects Sergio and the University of Life Sciences in Lublin is his experience in the nuclear field and his reflexion on sustainable energy as a member of the European Academy of Science and Arts, and as the Dean of the Academy's Technical and Environmental Science commission. His experience in the construction of Chernobyl's "sarcophagus" following the nuclear plant's 1986 accident, and also in the management of the liquid waste from the devastated reactors was also an important factor in the connexion between the nuclear engineer and the university. Lublin is located 600 kilometres from the site of the accident, and Poland is understandably quite concerned by the fallout that ensued.

In Lublin, switching from Latin to English, Sergio gave a talk titled "Flying into Nuclear Fission and Fusion Technologies in the Short and Medium Term." He will soon be back to Latin and to his favourite bedside book—Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Hurrah for new books!
12 Sep 2022
School is back in session in France! And at the International School of Manosque, students in the Chinese Section are the beneficiaries of a new set of textbooks thanks to the generosity of the Chinese Domestic Agency, which shipped ten boxes of books and materials in time for the new school year.

ASCENDANT podcast: Live at ITER
01 Sep 2022
Andrew Crusoe takes the listeners of the ASCENDANT podcast on site at ITER in August to explore the power and potential of fusion, and find out how ITER is posed "to create technology that will allow an abundance of clean, renewable energy."

ITER Communication's Sabina Griffith explains how interest in fusion got started, why it stalled after the oil crises of the 1970s, and why it is so important. Is fusion energy the key to our green, renewable future?

You can listen to the 45-minute podcast "Live at ITER: A Sun in a Bottle & The Way to Our Fusion Future" (ASCENDANT podcast 1:13) at this link.

Last chance to register for beryllium workshops BeWS-15 and BeYOND-IX
30 Aug 2022
Registration for the 15th International Workshop on Beryllium Technology (BeWS-15) and the 9th Industrial Forum on Beryllium Opportunities & New Developments (BeYOND-IX) closes this week on Wednesday 31 August. See this link for all information.

The workshops are organized by Kartlsruhe Institute of Technology and will be held in conjunction with the 32nd SOFT-2022, which is taking place in Dubrovnik, Croatia, from 18 to 23 September 2022 (https://soft2022.eu). Sessions on fusion blanket design, breeder/mulitplier materials, and risks and regulations are planned as part of the program.

See all information here.

Russian electrotechnical equipment delivered
25 Aug 2022
On 3 August 2022, the last of 14 trucks of Russian electrotechnical equipment was delivered to ITER at the DAHER warehouse in Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône, where mid-sized components are stored pending their transfer to the ITER site.

The delivery included a large number of high-current DC busbars (photo), which provide power supply to the ITER magnet system superconducting coils and are designed for long-term flow of direct current at 55 kA. In addition, DC switches, energy-dissipating resistors, and elements of control and cooling systems were part of the shipment. All of the equipment is destined for one of ITER's most crucial systems—power supply, without which it would be impossible to reach First Plasma. 

The material represented the 25th delivery of electrotechnical equipment developed and manufactured at the Efremov Institute (NIIEFA) in Saint Petersburg on behalf of the ROSATOM State Corporation. The manufacturing is being carried out under the terms of the Procurement Arrangement for switching networks, fast discharge units, DC busbars and instrumentation, concluded in 2011 between the ITER Organization and Russian Domestic Agency. 

--ITER Russia

London Science Museum to host FUSION22
24 Aug 2022
On Tuesday 18 October 2022, the London Science Museum will host FUSION22: The World Needs Fusion Energy. This hybrid event, which can be attended on line or in person, will showcase the incredible developments taking place in fusion all over the world. 

"Whether you're coming to fusion energy for the first time or have been involved in its development since the beginning, you'll find engaging, thought provoking and insightful sessions to fit your needs," say the organizers of the event. Events planned throughout the day include: "What Fusion Needs: Solutions To Technical Challenges,"How Will Fusion Make The Transition To An Industry?" and "The Energy Jigsaw: Where Does Fusion Fit Into The Future Energy Mix?"

The event is free. See this website to register.

--© Science Museum

 

Women in Big Science recognition awards
24 Aug 2022
The Big Science Business Forum (BSBF 2022) is a business oriented congress planned in Granada (Spain) from 4 to 7 October 2022. All the principal European research infrastructures will be present for a forum that aims to be the main meeting point between research infrastructure and industry.

This will be the second edition of the event after the success of the previous edition in Copenhagen, with more than 1,000 participants from 500 organizations and 29 countries in attendance.

Registration is still open at this address.

On 4 October, a side event—Woman in Science—will provide a platform where public organizations and industries operating in Big Science can share the experience, lessons learned and best practices on policies to increase the participation of women. It will also offer the participants a framework for networking.

The roundtable will conclude with the presentation of the Awards on Best Practices to recognize the efforts of companies and organizations toward improving gender equality in the work environment at different levels. To learn more about the award and modalities to apply, click here. The deadline is 18 September 2022 at 12:00 CET.

French YouTuber is back with a second video
17 Aug 2022
The French YouTuber and scientific populizer Dimitri Ferrière, alias Monsieur Bidouille, has published a second video on the ITER Project.

His first video, based on a three-day visit to the ITER worksite, introduced the project to over one million viewers in September 2021. This month, he is back with a video that reviews recent developments in the world of fusion, including startup projects, and compares their scope and ambition with ITER.

You can watch it (in French) on Monsieur Bidouille's YouTube channel here.

Recruiting: European agency for ITER seeks new Director
04 Aug 2022
Fusion for Energy (F4E), the European Union organization managing Europe's contribution to ITER, is currently seeking to recruit a new Director.

The Director will be appointed as a member of staff of F4E for a period of five years, which may be extended once in accordance with the F4E statutes. The Director is the chief executive officer responsible for the day-to-day management of F4E and is its legal representative.

F4E manages the European contribution to ITER, and is also involved in three major fusion R&D projects stemming from the Broader Approach Agreement signed between Europe and Japan. The agency is currently staffed by approximately 440 employees and 400 external contractors.

Read the full announcement on the F4E website here.

Go straight to the vacancy notice here.

Massive increases in "private" fusion investment
25 Jul 2022
Investment in private fusion companies has more than doubled in the past year and eight new companies have been founded, bringing the total to around 33.

According to the global fusion industry 2022 Report, six companies have now each raised over $200m in total, with notable investments in the last year including over $1.8 billion for Commonwealth Fusion Systems and $500m for Helion Energy, allowing them to develop pilot plants to demonstrate fusion electricity.

The huge step up in investment, coupled with increasing government support for fusion in the U.K. and the U.S., is increasing confidence within the fusion industry.

Andrew Holland, Chief Executive Officer of the Fusion Industry Association, states in the report, "We must not see a 'competition' between publicly funded and privately funded fusion approaches; instead, we must build real partnerships [...] With investment accelerating, it is increasingly likely that commercial fusion will become a reality within the next two decades, providing the basis for prosperity, safety, and security for many years to come."

Photo: Commonwealth Fusion Systems and its SPARC project raised over $1.8 billion last year.

Read the full article in Forbes.

 

Gallery: 5 European sectors, different stages
22 Jul 2022
In advance of the delivery of the first European vacuum vessel sector this autumn, the European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy has released a new series of photos from the European workshops in Italy where the sub-parts of five sectors are manufactured and assembled.

At Mangiarotti S.p.A (Monfalcone), see the final activities underway on sector #5, which will be the first to arrive. The four sub-segments have been welded into the final D shape and detailed inspections are underway.

At Walter Tosto S.p.A (Chieti), technicians on working on multiple sectors, performing welding, inserting in-wall shielding, and carrying out inspections.

And at Belleli Energy EPC (Mantova), one poloidal segment is shown in the radiographic testing bunker, while others are prepared for welding, or cleaned during final inspection.

Fusion for Energy (F4E), managing the European contribution to ITER, has entrusted the fabrication of five European vacuum vessel sectors to the AMW consortium (Ansaldo Nucleare, Mangiarotti, Walter Tosto) and their subcontractors ENSA, Belleli. Completion figures range between 81% (Sector #2) and 97% (Sector #5). 
 
See the photos on the Fusion for Energy Flickr page (May 2022).
EUROfusion 2023 researcher grants open for application
18 Jul 2022
Two EUROfusion grant programs aim to promote the education and training of a new generation of scientists and engineers in the fusion field.

EUROfusion Engineering Grants (EEG) are open to early career engineers within three years after their Master or PhD (or six years if relevant professional (industry) experience can be demonstrated). They enable selected candidates to specialize in a EUROfusion-relevant engineering topic.

EUROfusion research grants (ERG)—now renamed the EUROfusion Bernard Bigot Researcher Grants in honour of the former ITER Director-General—are attributed at postdoctoral level or equivalent to candidates who have defended their doctoral thesis in the two years preceding the submission deadline. Ten grants, for missions of up to two years, are foreseen for award every year.

Both calls are open until 13 September 2022. Applications should be submitted via one of the EUROfusion consortium members (acting as employing institute). See all details here.

See an article on the launch of the grants on the EUROfusion website here

Women in Fusion: website to go live
18 Jul 2022
Women in Fusion (WiF) is a new global platform for highlighting and encouraging the role of women in the field of fusion. This collaborative effort, driven by founding partners the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), ITER Organization, Fusion for Energy (F4E), General Atomics and EUROfusion, seeks to increase and promote the participation of women in fusion science, research, engineering and operations.

Women in Fusion was established in 2021 after a successful webinar at the Fusion Energy Conference (FEC2020). The Women in Fusion website, which will go live at around midnight CET on 18 July, creates a space for sharing experience, networking and promoting events and policies aligned with the group's mission.

Visit the website and join this week.

New ITER video: Going deeper and deeper into virtual reality
13 Jul 2022
The ITER Organization, in collaboration with colleagues from CEA Cadarache, is deploying advanced virtual reality tools that allow users to interact with objects inside of a real-scale simulation. Immersed in a virtual 3D environment, designers can detect clashes, carry out integration studies, and assess accessibility. Join Benoit Manfreo (Tokamak Integration Technical Officer) and Chiara di Paolo (ITER Project Associate) for a tour of the many possibilities.

See the video "Going deeper and deeper into virtual reality" on the ITER YouTube channel here.

FuseNet Phd Event 2022: PechaKucha and networking
13 Jul 2022
The first in-person FuseNet PhD event in three years took place from 4 to 6 July in Padova, Italy, hosted by the University of Padova and Consorzio RFX. A full roster of 131 participants from 23 countries and 44 different institutes and universities took part.

The FuseNet PhD Event is the place where European fusion PhD students meet and interact with affirmed international fusion researchers, aiming to strengthen and expand the fusion research network.

This session's participants were able to tour the Consorzio RFX facilities, including the ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility and the reversed field pinch device RFX-mod2.

See the full news story on the FuseNet website.

Gyrotrons and tetrodes for fusion (Thales)
27 Jun 2022
Produced by the Microwave & Imaging Sub-Systems group of the French multinational Thales, which provides electrical systems and services for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security markets, this video describes the company's work to design and build radio frequency and microwave sources for the ITER Project.

The mastery of vacuum, high voltage and microwave technologies is critical to creating wave-generating sources of ITER's radiowave external heating systems. The company is bringing all of its expertise to bear to build the European-sourced gyrotrons of the electron cyclotron heating system and the tetrodes of ion cyclotron heating system and contribute to "a disruptive alternative" in the 21st century energy mix.

See "Radiofrequency and Microwave Sources for Fusion Energy" on YouTube

EPS Forum—where physics meets industry
20 Jun 2022
The first week of June, the European Physical Society (EPS) organized the EPS Forum for the first time. The aim of the conference, which took place at the Sorbonne University in Paris, was to connect young physicists with big science and industry.

No fewer than three Nobel Prize Laureates were among the speakers—Barry Barish, Serge Haroche and John Michael Kosterlitz—to present the latest developments in the fields of quantum technology, energy science, accelerators, high-energy particle and nuclear physics. The European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya Gabriel, and the Vice-President of the European Research Council, Andrzej Jajszczyk, opened the EPS Forum on the first day.

As one of the first scientific speakers, Alberto Loarte, Head of the ITER Science Division, presented the physics basis of ITER and the status of the project. The interest showed by the young audience was enormous—as the steady traffic to the joint ITER/FuseNet booth proved.

One physics student from Macedonia, still undecided about his professional future, was so interested that he boarded the fast train from Paris down to Aix-en-Provence to see ITER with his own eyes.

For more impressions from the first EPS Forum click here.

2d IAEA Workshop on Fusion Enterprises
14 Jun 2022
A virtual workshop organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on 11 and 12 July 2022 will bring together actors in the fusion community to discuss the commercialization of fusion energy.

What does market analysis tell us about the potential demand for fusion? What is fusion's place in the future energy mix? What steps remain to commercialization? What are the economic constraints?

Panels will also discuss recent trends in public and private investment, the enabling technologies that can accelerate deployment, and the incredibly dynamic fusion startup ecosystem. The ITER Organization's Taka Omae, Chief Strategist, will participate in Session 6 "Future Considerations" on Day 2.

Monday 20 June is the last day to register. See this page for all information.

Bottling the Sun: a CNN report on ITER and fusion
03 Jun 2022
"From a small hill in the southern French region of Provence, you can see two suns. One has been blazing for four-and-a-half billion years and is setting. The other is being built by thousands of human minds and hands, and is—far more slowly—rising. The last of the real sun's evening rays cast a magical glow over the other—an enormous construction site that could solve the biggest existential crisis in human history."

Follow journalist Boštjan Videmšek and photographer Matjaž Krivic as they take you through the science of fusion, the recent milestone at the JET tokamak, construction at ITER, and how fusion could become the "11th-hour hero" of the climate crisis.

See the article on the CNN website here.

IAEA Technical Meeting on Plasma Disruptions and their Mitigation
30 May 2022
The Second IAEA Technical Meeting on Plasma Disruptions and their Mitigation will take place at ITER Headquarters in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France, from 19 to 22 July 2022, hosted by the Government of France through the ITER Organization. (A virtual connection will also be made available.) 

The event aims to serve as a forum to help coordinate experimental, theoretical and modelling work in the field of plasma disruptions with special emphasis on developing a solid basis for possible mitigation strategies in ITER and next generation fusion devices.

It aims to bring together junior and senior scientific fusion project leaders, plasma physicists, including theoreticians and experimentalists, and experts (researchers and engineers) in the field of plasma disruptions.

See all information at this link.

Helium-3: why go the Moon?
23 May 2022
Fusion can theoretically be achieved by several combinations of light elements such as hydrogen, helium or boron. However, in the present state of technology, the only fusion within our reach at industrial level is that of deuterium (D) and tritium (T), both isotopes of hydrogen. DT fusion however has one downside—it generates highly energetic neutrons that activate and alter the structures they bombard. (The good side of fusion neutrons is that they will be used to breed tritium from lithium inside the machine).

For decades, fusion physicists have pursued what is sometimes referred to as the "Holy Grail" of fusion: the fusion combinations that involve helium-3, which, instead of generating neutrons like in DT fusion, produce highly energetic protons. Advantages: no material activation or alteration and, protons being charged particles, the possibility of direct electricity generation (they can be manipulated by electric and magnetic fields). Downside: helium-3, which abounds on the Moon (hence the renewed interest for lunar exploration) is exceedingly rare on Earth.

Now, scientists at the University of California San Diego have discovered evidence that helium-3 could be much more abundant on Earth than previously known.

Led by Benjamin Birner, a postdoctoral scholar in geosciences, the team is developing tools and measurement methods to quantify the puzzling increase of helium-3 in the atmosphere, and understand where it could be coming from.

We might not need to go to the Moon, after all, to mine the fuels for second or third-generation fusion power plants.

Read the full story on Vice website.

ITER International School: pre-register before 1 June
23 May 2022
Pre-register before 1 June 2022 for this year's ITER International School on the topic of "ITER Plasma Scenarios and Control."

This in-person event will be held from 25 to 29 July 2022 at the University of California San Diego, hosted by the U.S. Burning Plasma Organization, the ITER Organization, UC San Diego, and General Atomics.

Most attendees will be graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and early career faculty and research staff working in fields relevant to the ITER program. Although the agenda will focus on topics of scenarios and control, attendees are not required to be working in these subfields. All nationalities, whether representing an ITER Member or not, are welcome.

To register, see this webpage.

360° tour updated (April 2022)
23 May 2022
The virtual tour of ITER construction has been updated with 360° photos from April 2022. Enter the main ITER plant buildings, fly over the worksite, and plunge 30 metres into the ITER Tokamak pit to see what has changed since the last update in September 2021.

Accessible from the home page of the ITER website (yellow icon) or by clicking on the link below.

Click here to enter the latest 360° ITER virtual tour.

New video on fusion from the Financial Times
27 Apr 2022
The Financial Times channel FT Rethink produces multimedia content that focuses on "the people, technology, strategies and systems moving us from an economy that is wasteful, idle, lopsided and dirty towards one that is circular, lean, inclusive and clean."

In a video published on 21 April 2022, the channel turns its lens to nuclear fusion and its "enormous potential" as an energy source.

Join host Anjana Ahuja to learn more about fusion science, recent breakthroughs in the field, and growing interest from private investors in "Making the heart of a star power the world."

Registration opens for the 2022 ITER International School
22 Apr 2022
Registration is open now for the 11th ITER International School. This in-person event will be held from 25 to 29 July 2022 at the University of California San Diego, hosted by the U.S. Burning Plasma Organization, the ITER Organization, UC San Diego, and General Atomics.

The subject of this year's school is "ITER Plasma Scenarios and Control." As the start of ITER operation approaches, it is timely to address this challenging multidisciplinary topic: the development of integrated operating scenarios and required plasma control to facilitate the ITER goals, particularly for plasmas self-heated by fusion-born alpha particles.

Most attendees will be graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and early career faculty and research staff working in fields relevant to the ITER program. Although the agenda will focus on topics of scenarios and control, attendees are not required to be working in these subfields. All nationalities, whether representing an ITER Member or not, are welcome.

The ITER International School is organized regularly with the goal of giving young scientists and engineers a taste of the stimulating, multi-disciplinary and challenging field that is nuclear fusion.

For all information on the 2022 edition and to register, see this webpage.

The B1M construction channel visits ITER
14 Apr 2022
The B1M—the world's largest, most subscribed-to video channel for construction—aims to inspire people to join the construction industry by showcasing the incredible projects and feats of engineering it delivers.

In March 2022, the team came to ITER. The result is an entertaining and educational nine-minute video that takes you into the very heart of ITER machine construction. "This is so much more than just an energy project; it's a $22 billion science experiment between a whole host of nations all coming together to try and change how we generate power on this planet," says host Fred Mills as he guides the viewer through a maze of components and tooling in the ITER Assembly Hall.

Colette Ricketts, deputy head of the ITER Project Control Office, also makes a cameo appearance to explain how the arrival of components from the ITER Members is planned and managed ... and re-planned if necessary, as when international events have an unexpected effect on manufacturing or shipping.

"It's a pretty nuclear level of project collaboration," says the B1M team. "It's kind of like building a LEGO kit ... just 10 million times more complicated."

Watch "We Went Inside the Largest Nuclear Fusion Reactor" on YouTube here.

ITER Talks | The Tokamak Cooling Water System
11 Apr 2022
Donato Lioce, head of ITER's Tokamak Cooling Water System Section, describes the plant system that will remove heat from the ITER machine and in-vessel components as "absolutely unique."

One of its peculiarities is the sheer volume of equipment—which is absolutely huge compared to the cooling system in a nuclear fission plant. More than 6,000 tonnes of equipment, 43 kilometres of piping, 3,000 valves, heat exchangers, pumps ... all housed over the seven levels in the Tokamak Building. Another is the fact that the system is designed not only to cool, but also to heat: the same equipment that circulates cooling water can also circulate hot water to "bake" tokamak components before plasma operation, or hot gas to "dry" components before maintenance. The cyclical nature of the ITER machine, designed for 30,000 plasma pulses, also has repercussions for the design of the tokamak cooling water system and its hundreds of clients.

Follow along as Donato describes in detail the different functionalities of the ITER tokamak cooling water system, system equipment, and the procurement effort that is underway now.

Watch the eighth episode of ITER Talks here. 

See the full ITER Talks playlist on YouTube here.

 

 

China honours ITER's Alain Bécoulet
04 Apr 2022
On Monday 28 March 2022, the Chinese Embassy in France organized a ceremony in honour of the two French laureates of the 2020 China International Science and Technology Cooperation Award. Eight international scientists had been named during the National Science and Technology Award Conference held in Beijing in November 2021; due to the pandemic, the prize ceremonies are being organized by Chinese embassies.

Fusion expert Alain Bécoulet and French hematologist Jacques Caen received their awards from the hands of Ambassador Lu Shaye.

Alain Bécoulet is former director of the Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (IRFM), part of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), and current Head of the ITER Engineering Domain. In the course of his career, he helped to develop scientific collaboration between the Chinese and European fusion communities, particulary between the WEST project that he headed at IRFM and China's EAST tokamak. He has been a frequent visitor to the country, making more than 30 trips and developing "warm and confident relationships." HE expressed his "honour, pride and joy" at receiving the prize during his acceptance speech in Paris. 

The International Science and Technology Cooperation Award was initiated by China's State Council in 1994, and is conferred on foreign individuals or organizations that have made important contribution to China's science and technology development.

Calling for nominations: 2022-23 Fusion Technology Awards
30 Mar 2022
During the 30th Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE 2023, 9-14 July 2023), the Fusion Technology Awards for 2022 and 2023 will be presented to individuals who have distinguished themselves through innovation in all fusion approaches that have shown significant promise or progress in the design of reactors or in the understanding of fusion plasmas.

The awards each consist of a USD 3,000 cash prize and a plaque. The nomination package should be sent to the Fusion Technology Committee Awards Chair, Dr. Carl Pawley (drcpawley@ieee.org), and it should consist of a letter describing the technical contributions on which the nomination is recommended and a current resume of the candidate. Other supporting endorsements are encouraged.

The nomination deadline for the 2022 and 2023 Fusion Technology Awards is 8 April 2022.

For more detailed information on eligibility, basis for judging, the nomination process or a list of past award recipients, please visit the IEEE-NPSS website and go to the "Fusion Technology Awards" section.

Industrial opportunities in Big Science
28 Mar 2022
The 2022 Big Science Business Forum is the "one-stop meeting point" in Europe between Big Science and industry.

Scheduled from 4 to 7 October 2022 as an in-person event in Granada, Spain, the forum will feature the procurement and technology transfer opportunities of eleven prominent European Big Science research facilities in the areas of astrophysics, space, synchrotrons, high-energy accelerators and fusion. The European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy, is one of the founding members of the Big Science Business Forum. Some speakers from the ITER Organization will also be present at the event.

Business opportunities worth EUR 37 million (for the period 2022-2026) will be presented. More than 1,000 participants from 500 companies and organizations across Europe are expected. 

A specific "Technology Transfer track" will provide research entities and companies at the forum with the means to share and seek technologies that have potential cross-market applications, either in Big Science or in other markets.

Opportunities to get involved in the IFMIF-DONES materials research facility, a key step on the European Roadmap to Fusion Energy that is planned for construction in Granada, Spain, will also be highlighted.

A special event dedicated to "Women in Big Science" is scheduled on Day 1.

See all information at this address.

The Easiest Thing Nature Does (video)
18 Mar 2022
The European Fusion Education Network FuseNet has released a new 30-minute video on fusion energy. In "The Easiest Thing Nature Does," the viewer is introduced to the whats, whys, and hows of fusion by some of the very people who are working on the ground in Europe to make fusion energy a reality.

Meet researchers from CIEMAT (Spain), the Max Planck Institute for Fusion Energy (Germany), the ITER Organization, and York University (United Kingdom). Hear from members of the UKAEA/JET tokamak team, including a mechatronics engineer, a plasma spectroscopist, a senior operations manager, and a diagnostics project engineer. Learn about tokamaks, stellarators and the current dynamism of the private fusion sector. And drop by ITER, where construction is underway on the world's largest fusion device.

It's an exciting time for those involved in fusion worldwide, and it's a sector that is recruiting. "The Easiest Thing Nature Does" lists the many types of skills that are needed and invites you to get involved!

See the video on this FuseNet page or on YouTube.

How to find the ITER podcast
10 Mar 2022
"All About ITER," ITER's first podcast miniseries, is now available through World Radio Paris, the only 24/7 English-speaking national radio channel in France. If you haven't heard about it already, "All About ITER" is a miniseries with six episodes that dive deep into what makes ITER tick: from the science behind fusion, to the manufacturing taking place all over the world, to the people behind the project.

You can listen to "All About ITER" live on World Radio Paris (WRP) between the weeks of 7 March and 16 May (schedule below), on the WRP website, or by downloading the WRP app.

And if you're not in France, the ITER podcast "All About ITER" is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Tune In, PodBean and the ITER website.

Schedule: World Radio Paris
Mondays, 2 p.m.
Tuesdays, 11 a.m.
Fridays, 7 p.m.
Episode 1: Week of 7 March
Episode 2: Week of 21 March
Episode 3: Week of 4 April
Episode 4: Week of 18 April
Episode 5: Week of 2 May
Episode 6: Week of 16 May

Bécoulet's "Star Power": Fusion made simple and inspiring
07 Mar 2022
A theoretical physicist, but one who views theory as something "to be put to use," Alain Bécoulet can speak (and write) about fusion in terms that are both simple and inspiring. In his recently published Star Power: ITER and the International Quest for Fusion Energy (MIT Press), he offers a concise and accessible overview of fusion energy promises and challenges, not only explaining the underlying science and technology but also describing the massive international effort to harness this potential new energy source.

Having embraced plasma physics in the mid-1980s as a student at France's prestigious École Normale Supérieure, Bécoulet draws from his long experience in fusion research, first at France's Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (IRFM), and since February 2020 as head of the ITER Engineering Domain, to explain how the long-pursued dream of harnessing the energy of the Sun and stars is on the verge of becoming reality.

Find out more here.

ITER Talks | The ITER Research Plan, How to Reach Q=10
07 Mar 2022
In this ITER Talk, the seventh in the series, ITER scientific expert Joseph Snipes walks us through plans for ITER operation. What does the "Q" in ITER's goal of Q=10 stand for? How will the machine and its systems be prepped for operation? What are the different steps between First Plasma and full fusion power operation?

The ITER Research Plan will proceed in four stages—a careful step-by-step strategy designed to achieve high plasma performance operation up to a plasma current of 15 MA, with key milestones along the way. Learn about the staggered assembly of key systems, the specific goals of each operation phase, the means to achieve the goals, and the importance of robust plasma control. By the end of the talk, you'll know (a lot) more about the unique capabilities of the ITER experimental device.

A note to viewers: This ITER Talk goes hand in hand with ITER Talk (6)—"Tokamak Physics for Nuclear Fusion" by the head of the ITER Science Division Alberto Loarte (viewable here).

Watch the seventh episode of ITER Talks here.

See the full ITER Talks playlist on YouTube here.

ITER Talks | Tokamak Physics for Nuclear Fusion
28 Feb 2022
Alberto Loarte, head of the Science Division at the ITER Organization, introduces us to the physics of ITER plasmas and explains how the physics justifies the design of the machine. He reviews the deuterium-tritium nuclear fusion process, the role of magnetic fields in fusion, the specificities of the tokamak configuration, energy and particle confinement, heating and fuelling, and finally fusion power, particle exhaust and plasma-wall interactions. And he does it all in a clear and understandable way!

A note to viewers: This ITER Talk goes hand in hand with ITER Talk (7)—"The ITER Research Plan: How to Reach Q=10" by ITER scientific expert Joseph Snipes (viewable on the ITER YouTube channel here.

Watch the sixth episode of ITER Talks here.

See the full ITER Talks playlist on YouTube here.

A third way to fusion?
28 Feb 2022
There are presently two approaches to realizing hydrogen fusion. One, implemented in tokamaks and stellarators, consists in heating a very tenuous plasma to temperatures in the 100 million degrees Celsius range and to confine it in a magnetic cage—this is magnetic fusion. Another, called inertial fusion, is implemented in installations such as the American National Ignition Facility (NIF) or the French Laser Mégajoule. In inertial fusion an array of hundreds of powerful lasers, precisely focused, is used to compress to extreme density (and hence very high temperature) tiny hydrogen-filled capsules inside which fusion reactions can occur.

Now, a third approach is being considered and experimented at NASA's Glenn Research Center, in Cleveland, Ohio. Called "lattice confinement fusion," it could one day provide enough power to operate small space probes or rovers for planetary exploration.

In lattice confinement fusion (LCF), a beam of gamma rays is directed at a sample of erbium or titanium saturated with deuterium nuclei (deuteron). Occasionally, gamma rays of sufficient energy will break apart a deuteron in the metal lattice into its constituent proton and neutron. The energetic neutron has a chance of colliding with another deuteron in the lattice, imparting it with some of its energy. And sometimes that energy is enough for deuterons to fuse into a helium-3 nucleus (helion) and give off useful energy. A leftover neutron could provide the push for another energetic deuteron elsewhere in the lattice.

"Our work represents just the first step toward realizing that goal," say the scientists involved in this endeavour. "If the reaction rates can be significantly boosted, LCF may open an entirely new door for generating clean nuclear energy, both for space missions and for the many people who could use it here on Earth."

 Read more about lattice confinement fusion on the IEEE Spectrum here.

 

 

WEST is first to test fibered LIBS measurements
28 Feb 2022
During the operation of a fusion machine, it is important to know the surface composition of the plasma-facing components, which can evolve over time (erosion, oxidation...) and modify plasma interaction conditions.

The team at the WEST tokamak in France is testing a new kind of diagnostic, called the fibered LIBS (for Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy), to characterize internal surfaces of WEST and later ITER. 

In LIBS, a high-intensity pulsed laser beam is focused on the surface to be analyzed. The laser/matter interaction leads to the ablation of the material and the creation of a plasma plume. The spectral analysis of the plasma emission gives access to the elemental composition of the ablated material and thus the composition of the material under study.

Installed on an inspection robot equipped with an articulated arm, the LIBS tool consists of an optical fibre carrying the incident laser light and the light emitted during the interaction of the laser beam with the material under study. The diagnostic can not only characterize all internal surfaces of the machine and follow their evolution, but also (in ITER) monitor tritium concentration in the first wall and detect eventual helium bubbles in plasma-facing components coming from the interaction of fusion neutrons with the materials.

The first tests were carried out in December 2021. Read the original article in English or in French.

Webinar: Burning Plasma Aspects at ITER
28 Feb 2022
Mark your calendars: The Head of ITER's Science Division, Alberto Loarte, will be giving a webinar on 2 February 2022 called "Burning Plasma Aspects at ITER."

The talk is part of a webinar series organized by the U.S. Burning Plasma Organization (USBPO) that runs from January through August 2022 with one or two webinars a month. (See the full program here.) 

The U.S. Burning Plasma Organization (USBPO) is a national organization of scientists and engineers involved in researching magnetically confined burning fusion plasmas.

To sign up for "Burning Plasma Aspects at ITER," see this page.

Metrology-assisted machine assembly
21 Feb 2022
The global manufacturing intelligence firm Hexagon AB is providing metrology support to ITER for the precise assembly of components during the machine assembly phase. In this promotional video you can watch how the huge components of ITER's first vacuum vessel sub-assembly are brought together with assembly tolerances of just 1 mm.

See the video here.

2022 Culham Summer School announced
12 Feb 2022
The 59th Culham Plasma Physics Summer School will take place from 18 to 28 July 2022 at the Culham Science Centre in Oxfordshire (UK).

The aim of the Summer School is to provide an introduction to the fundamental principles of plasma physics, together with a broad understanding of its fields of application. It assumes no previous knowledge of the subject, but familiarity with electromagnetism and applied mathematics at first degree level would be helpful.

The 2022 school will cover fundamental plasma physics, as well as important topics in fusion, astrophysical, laser and low temperature plasmas. Lecturers are drawn from the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) together with leading European universities. All are renowned experts in their fields.

Special arrangements are being made this year to allow for COVID. For more details and to apply visit the dedicated website.

The deadline for applications is 20 June 2022.

JET campaign results: watch live
08 Feb 2022
Scientists from the European research consortium EUROfusion have recently completed ambitious fusion energy experiments at the world-leading fusion research facility JET (Joint European Torus) at the UK Atomic Energy Authority in Oxford, UK. Join them for a media event on Wednesday 9 February 2022 at 12pm - 2pm GMT as they reveal the exciting results.

Click here to link to the media event.

 

Webinar: Women in Big Science
07 Feb 2022
On Friday, 11 February 2022—International Day of Women and Girls in Science—Fusion for Energy (F4E) and the Big Science Business Forum will be hosting a webinar on the role of Women in Big Science. The session will bring together representatives from big science organizations, industry and policy in Europe to discuss the potential of women in big science and some of the long-lasting challenges they face.

The idea of an award promoting best practice involving women in big science will also be discussed.

Registration is open here.

Replay: ITER's virtual open doors day
03 Feb 2022
For 15 years ITER has been opening its doors to visitors, either in small groups or during regular Open Doors Days. Approximately 160,000 visitors from all horizons—school children, students, members of the public, companies, politicians—have passed through the ITER gates since 2007, returning home with a better idea of the scale and importance of ITER and of the passion that animates the men and women who work here.

Because in-person Open Door Days have been impossible for the past two years, the ITER Communication team innovated in 2021, creating a virtual experience on line for "visitors" from around the world.

Demonstrations, livestreams from the worksite, videos, presentations, virtual reality ... there is something for everyone.

The three-hour event is now available in replay. Follow this link to view it.

ITER International School in July
03 Feb 2022
The 11th ITER International School will be held from 25 to 29 July 2022, hosted in person by the U.S. Burning Plasma Organization, University of California at San Diego, and General Atomics.

The subject of this year's school is "ITER Plasma Scenarios and Control." As the start of ITER operation approaches, it is timely to address this challenging multidisciplinary topic: the development of integrated operating scenarios and required plasma control to facilitate the ITER goals, particularly for plasmas self-heated by fusion-born alpha particles.

The ITER International School is organized regularly with the goal of giving young scientists and engineers a taste of the stimulating, multi-disciplinary and challenging field that is nuclear fusion.

For all information on the 2022 edition, see this webpage.

C. Alejaldre: Serving fusion in yet another capacity
31 Jan 2022
Carlos Alejaldre, who was an ITER Organization Deputy-Director-General from 2006 to 2015 and who is the current Director-General of CIEMAT (Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas), the Spanish public research agency focused on energy and the environment, has been appointed as the new Chair of the Fusion for Energy (F4E) Governing Board.

A plasma physicist by training, Carlos has held several important positions in fusion research. Prior to joining ITER, he headed CIEMAT's national fusion laboratory (1992-2004) and was for two years (2004-2006) the director general of technological policy at the Spanish ministry of Education and Science. At ITER, he was head of the Safety and Security Department.

Alejaldre will act as Chair of the F4E Governing Board, the body that supervises the activities of the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the development of fusion energy, for an initial period of two years starting on 1 January 2022. 

See the F4E website for more information. 

Prince Charles tours JET and meets ITER
31 Jan 2022
In a rare and memorable moment, the Joint European Torus (JET) team today received His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales for a tour and first-hand discussion of fusion energy. Long known as an advocate of environmental awareness and sustainable energy, Prince Charles was, according to UKAEA CEO Ian Chapman, "keen to understand more about how fusion can be a critical piece of the future global energy puzzle." Together with European and UK officials, ITER Chief Scientist Tim Luce was present to meet the Prince of Wales and explain the JET-ITER connection.

Currently the world's most powerful tokamak, JET is a direct precursor to ITER, and recently celebrated the completion of its 100,000th pulse. New scientific results from the most recent JET deuterium-tritium campaign will be released in February.

During his visit, the Prince of Wales was introduced to ITER by Tim Luce, head of the ITER Science & Operations Domain (left).

See the official UK government press release here.

Fusion Energy Forum of Japan: annual symposium
26 Jan 2022
On 17 December 2021, the Fusion Energy Forum of Japan (FEFJ) held its annual Symposium on the ITER Project and Broader Approach* activities. Featuring speakers from government, business, academia, and science, the 4.5-hour event covered fusion energy policy in Japan, progress in domestic and international fusion projects (including ITER and the Broader Approach), frontiers in research, and industrial applications.

See all speakers and presentations at this link

Watch the event on YouTube in Japanese or with a voiceover in English.  

* The Broader Approach activities, financed by Europe and Japan, aim to accelerate the realization of fusion energy. Find out more here.

JET: Hello #100,000
20 Jan 2022
Since its inauguration in 1983 in the presence of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the European tokamak JET has cemented its reputation as "one of the most important machines in the history of fusion energy research," according to Ian Chapman, CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority. On 18 January 2022, the machine ran its 100,000th plasma pulse.

JET, for Joint European Torus, is the focal point of the European fusion research program, designed to study fusion in conditions approaching those needed for a power plant. It is the only experiment that can operate with the deuterium-tritium fuel mix that will be used for commercial fusion power (and in ITER).

In 1997 JET successfully produced a world record 22.5 megajoules of fusion energy and 16 megawatts of fusion power during the first dedicated deuterium-tritium experiments, proving large amounts of power can be produced from fusion.

In 2011 JET was equipped with a new ITER-like inner wall made of beryllium and tungsten metals, enabling scientists to develop plasma scenarios that resemble as closely as possible those planned for ITER, investigate the interaction of the plasma with wall materials, and study the accumulation of tungsten from the wall in the plasma core.

In 2021, JET carried out a second full-power run of experiments using deuterium and tritium. Stay tuned: the results from these experiments will be announced in early February 2022.

The JET facilities located at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in Abingdon, Oxfordshire UK, are collectively used by all European fusion laboratories under the EUROfusion consortium. About 350 scientists from EU countries (plus Switzerland, the UK and Ukraine), and more from around the globe, participate in JET experiments each year. CCFE is responsible for operating the facility for fusion researchers and for maintaining and upgrading it. This work is carried out under a contract between the European Commission and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (CCFE's operator). 

The ITER community congratulates the JET team on its 100,000th pulse!

FuseNet Master's Thesis Prize 2021
18 Jan 2022
Thesis supervisors are invited to nominate a student for the 2021 FuseNet Master Thesis Prize by 10 February 2022.

FuseNet will award the prizes to students who write outstanding Master's theses that were (at least partially) carried out and completed across Europe. The prizes serve to highlight the important research that is carried out by dedicated and talented fusion students.

As a prize, the winners will be invited to present their work as a poster at the 48th European Physical Society Conference of Plasma Physics held in Maastricht, the Netherlands, from 27 June to 1 July 2022. Travel, subsistence, and fees will all be covered by FuseNet.

Learn more about the prize on the FuseNet website.

ITER Talks | Assembly
17 Jan 2022
The size and weight of major ITER components, the careful handling, tiny assembly tolerances, the breadth of manufacturers, the tight schedule, complex interfaces ... all of these elements combine to make the assembly of the ITER machine an engineering and logistics challenge of enormous proportions.

In this new ITER Talks video, two members of the Construction Domain—Jens Reich (Ex-Vessel Delivery & Assembly Division Head) and Brian Macklin (Group Leader for Ex-Vessel Assembly)—describe how teams have planned for the assembly of the 23,000-tonne ITER machine, how the sequences are unfolding, what the main challenges are, and what lessons have been learned since the first machine assembly activity was launched in 2018.

Watch the fifth episode of the ITER Talks here.

See the full ITER Talks playlist on YouTube here.

ITER Information Day: Hot Cell Project Integrator
17 Jan 2022
The ITER Organization has launched the procurement for the Hot Cell Facility Project Integrator. 

The ITER Hot Cell Facility is the maintenance and refurbishment facility supporting tokamak operation. The role of the Project Integrator will be to prepare and promote the collaboration to realize the ITER Hot Facility, working with both the clients and first-tier contractors through all project phases.

For companies interested in learning more about the Hot Cell Facility Project Integrator contract, a virtual procurement Information Day will be organized on 24 January 2022. 

Register here by 20 January.

The deadline for this Call for Nomination is 28 January 2022. 

Monaco-ITER Fellows: campaign opens
17 Jan 2022
Recruitment opens TODAY for the 2022 Monaco-ITER Postdoctoral Fellowship campaign. The ITER Organization is looking for five postdoctoral candidates in the fields of fusion science or engineering for two-year positions based in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France (ITER Headquarters).

If your PhD was awarded after 1 January 2019—or you are about to obtain one—and you are interested in participating in one of the greatest scientific and technical challenges of the 21st century, this may be an opportunity for you.

The positions are funded by the Principality of Monaco, which signed a Partnership Arrangement with the ITER Organization in 2008 and renewed its sponsorship in 2018 for ten years. Candidates must have an excellent track record of creativity and accomplishment in their chosen fields.

The campaign closes on 1 March 2022. For more information see Monaco-ITER 2022. To apply, see the ITER Jobs page.

CERN Courier: Vacuum solutions fuel fusion dreams
12 Jan 2022
The CERN Courier just released its 2022 In Focus report on vacuum science, technology and innovation. In it, there is a four-page report on vacuum science at ITER featuring Vacuum Section Leader Robert Pearce.

"Design, construction, commissioning, operation and upgrade: the life-cycle of large-scale scientific vacuum systems informs the exclusive coverage in this CERN Courier In Focus report," writes the editor. "Think technology innovation and implementation on an ambitious canvas like ITER's sprawling vacuum ecosystem, a core building block in the international research effort to transform nuclear fusion into an at-scale energy proposition (pp. 20-22)."

[...]"When it becomes operational later this decade, the ITER fusion research project will be dependent on one of the most complex vacuum systems ever built. Joe McEntee checks out progress with ITER vacuum section leader Robert Pearce, while highlighting the downstream commercial opportunities already spinning out from the core construction programme."

You can read the report here.

Watch a recent ITER TALK on vacuum here.

Apply to the Erasmus Mundus FUSION-EP Master's program
12 Jan 2022
Applications are open through 31 January 2022 for the 2022-2024 program; students from all over the world are encouraged to apply.

The Erasmus Mundus European Master of Science in Nuclear Fusion and Engineering Physics (FUSION-EP) aims to provide a high-level multinational research-oriented education in fusion-related engineering or physics in close relation to the research activities of the partners (7 universities and 24 partners (including the ITER Organization) in 12 countries.

This master degree is a unique opportunity for the selected students to study in two different European countries and to discover and work at major fusion research facilities during the two years' programme.

The very international curriculum, the high quality and completeness of the curriculum and the high selectivity of FUSION-EP allowed it to be selected as an EMJMD by the Executive Agency for Culture, Education and Audiovisual. The EACEA provides a number of full scholarships for the best-ranked applicants.

Apply now for a start in September 2022.

For more information or to apply, see the Fusion-EP website

2021

ITER Talks | Vacuum
13 Dec 2021
In the latest episode of the ITER Talks series, join ITER specialist Robert Pearce for a voyage into the universe of vacuum. Is vacuum absolutely nothing ... or is it something more than you could imagine? Does a "perfect vacuum" exist? How can vacuum be defined and measured, and how did scientists come to understand it? What is the importance of vacuum for ITER?

As head of the Vacuum Delivery & Installation Section at ITER, Pearce is responsible for the systems that will create the necessary vacuum conditions not only in the plasma chamber and the cryostat, but also in heating, diagnostic and auxiliary systems.

Watch the fourth episode of the ITER Talks here.

See the full ITER Talks playlist here.

Sound of Science podcast: episode on fusion
10 Dec 2021
A new episode of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Sound of Science podcast puts the focus on fusion.

"Building a sun on Earth to produce unlimited, carbon-free energy may sound like science fiction, but it's not. It's a nuclear process called fusion, where two atoms join together and create an abundance of energy. Recreating the power of a star is no easy feat, but scientists across the globe are hard at work to make it a reality. From materials, to confining sun-hot plasmas, to fuel, there are a lot of scientific challenges to overcome to build a fusion reactor. In this episode, we talked to several Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists about how they are tackling these problems and why the future of fusion looks brighter than ever right now."

Listen to "Fusion: Energy at the Extreme" here (30').

Fusion featured on Al Jazeera's "The Stream"
09 Dec 2021
On Wednesday, 8 December 2021, Al Jazeera's The Stream asked: Could fusion energy be the clean energy answer to the climate crisis?

Recent advances have led to a rise in interest and funding from investors who want to see the first energy-creating fusion machine and eventually the first fusion power plant to generate power that is safe and free of carbon emissions. How far are we away from re-creating the energy source of the Sun?

Host Josh Rushing speaks with Tim Luce, chief scientist at the ITER Organization; Andrew Holland, CEO of the Fusion Industry Association; and Tammy Ma, from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility.

Watch a replay of the 25-minute show here.

U.S. Burning Plasma Organization: new webinar series
09 Dec 2021
A new series of webinars on burning plasma physics has been announced by the U.S. Burning Plasma Organization (USBPO). The webinars will focus on the implications for burning plasma physics of different types of fusion devices including the tokamak, the stellarator, high-field devices and new concepts. The webinar series is organized in the context of long-range fusion energy planning activities that have been launched in the United States, but the updates on recent developments can interest the worldwide community. Seven webinars are planned (dates subject to confirmation).

See more about the new webinar series here.

See the sign up link at the end of this document.

USBPO works to advance the scientific understanding of burning plasmas and coordinates relevant fusion research in the United States with broad community participation. See https://burningplasma.org/

SOFE 2021 goes virtual
06 Dec 2021
The 2021 Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE) will take place exclusively on line from 12 to 16 December 2021. It will be co-located on the same virtual platform as the IEEE Pulsed Power Conference (PPE), offering participants enhanced opportunities for social and technical interaction.

Held biennially since 1965, SOFE is coordinated by the Fusion Technology Committee of the IEEE/NPSS (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/Nuclear & Plasma Sciences Society). The Symposium is dedicated to the scientific, technological and engineering issues of fusion energy research and is a mixture of oral presentations and poster sessions. 

Head of the ITER Engineering Domain Alain Bécoulet will be  presenting the status of ITER assembly in the Opening Plenary. Other ITER presenters will discuss tokamak assembly, diagnostic engineering and integration, and the ITER in-vessel coils.

There is still time to sign up at PPC-SOFE 2021.

ITER at the World Nuclear Exhibition 2021
06 Dec 2021
ITER was represented earlier this month at the world's largest exhibition dedicated to the civil nuclear sector—the World Nuclear Exhibition (WNE), which was organized in Paris and virtually from 30 November to 2 December 2021.

WNE brings together the global civil nuclear community once every two years for networking and discussions of the major challenges facing the industry and society. This year's edition, which attracted more than 600 exhibitors from 83 countries and approximately 18,000 participants, was organized around the theme "The nuclear industry, a key partner for a low-carbon society in a responsible future."  

Organizers highlighted the role that the global nuclear sector can play as a "steerable, non-intermittent, and competitive" source of electricity in the fight against climate change and the effort to move toward a sustainable low-carbon-emissions future. "R&D in new technologies and concepts are stimulating the sector as well as business and job prospects and competitiveness within the entire value chain," stressed WNE President Sylvie Bermann. 

In her address on the opening day, European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson placed ITER squarely in the category of "disruptive innovations. "The benefit for international scientific collaboration and the potential spill-over effect for technological innovation is hugely significant."

At the ITER stand, in space shared with the European Commission and the European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy, there was a steady stream of interested visitors over three days. The most common question from nuclear industry representatives was: "How can we get involved in fusion?"

(Photo: Philippe Eranian)

Apply now for an ITER internship
01 Dec 2021
The ITER Organization has kicked off its 2022 internship program with the publication of 68 offers on the ITER website (visit Jobs/Internships here: https://www.iter.org/jobs/internships).

These opportunities are geared toward undergraduate and postgraduate students, with a broad array of topics across scientific, technical and support departments. Science, technology, systems engineering, business operations, and construction and installation are all represented in this year's batch of internship opportunities.

Positions are offered for up to six months; some categories are extendable to one year. Apply before 16 February 2022 (or 16 January 2022 for internships beginning in Q1 2022) through the online e-recruiting system. (Please note that internship opportunities are limited to nationals from countries participating in the ITER Project, i.e., China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russian Federation and the United States.)

Seeking the next group of Monaco-ITER Fellows
01 Dec 2021
Recruitment opens for the next Monaco-ITER Postdoctoral Fellowship campaign on 17 January 2022. If your PhD was awarded after 1 January 2019—or you are about to obtain one—and you are interested in participating in one of the great scientific and technical challenges of the 21st century, this may be an opportunity for you.

ITER is seek top candidates with an excellent track record of creativity and accomplishment. Research possibilities exist in many areas of fusion science and technology, including: control technology; plasma-facing materials and components; burning plasma physics (confinement, stability, plasma-wall interactions, control, energetic particle physics); heating and current drive physics and technology; fusion plasma diagnostics; superconducting magnet technology; electrical engineering; mechanical engineering/structural analysis; remote handling technology; vacuum technology and plasma fuelling technology; cryogenics; tokamak operations; tritium breeding and tritium handling technology; and thermohydraulics.

The 2022 campaign opens on 17 January 2022 and closes on 1 March 2022. Five researchers, selected from among applicants from the seven ITER Members or from the Principality of Monaco, will be recruited for two-year positions (all positions must be taken up by 31 December 2021).

For all information, see this ITER webpage.

Download the campaign poster here

French YouTuber releases video on ITER science
22 Nov 2021
Bertrand, creator of the YouTube channel J'm'énerve pas, j'explique ("I don't get mad, I explain"), manages to explain physics, astrophysics and cosmology in videos that blend detailed explanation, home-made graphics and humour. After producing popular videos on particle accelerators, the Large Hadron Collider, and the Higgs boson, he has turned to ITER science. In a 35-minute video release in November 2021 he covers nuclear fusion in the Sun, the history of fusion in the laboratory, and the ambition of the ITER Project. Why will ITER use hydrogen isotopes as fuel? How will the experiment create temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius? How will materials survive inside of the plasma chamber? Why does the tokamak have to be so large?

You can watch it (in French) on the J'm'énerve pas, j'explique YouTube channel here

Understanding energy
15 Nov 2021
Who knows how much energy 1 joule represents? How much oil does it take to make a mobile phone? How much coal is used in the world? Despite all the debate about this crucial subject, most of us are in fact "energy blind." We often talk about energy without fully appreciating what it means today, or how central it is to all human evolution.

A new book by Greg De Temmerman—an energy physicist with a PhD in experimental physics, managing director at the think tank Zenon Research, and former scientific coordinator at ITER—provides the keys to understanding energy in a fun, short chronicle format.

Available for pre-order in English and French at Editions la Butineuse.

FuseNet Student Council: applicants wanted
15 Nov 2021
FuseNet is the European Fusion Education Network, formed to promote access to fusion education and build a network of people to make fusion a reality.

If you are a fusion enthusiast in the master's or doctoral phase of your education at one of FuseNet's affiliated member associations, you may be qualified to serve on the FuseNet Student Council.

The Student Council—one of the two permanent FuseNet advisory bodies—is charged with advising the Board of Governors on those matters that are of interest to students. The Council predominantly convenes digitally, but it also has at least one physical meeting each year. Members to the Student Council are appointed for one year, renewable once.

Should you wish to apply to become a member of the FuseNet Student Council, send a 400-word motivation letter and one-page curriculum vitae to student.council@fusenet.eu by 1 December 2021.

Read more about the FuseNet Student Council here.

Upcoming: IAEA webinar on fusion
15 Nov 2021
Scientists, engineers, policymakers, entrepreneurs and investors interested in fusion are invited to join the International Atomic Energy Agency's first fusion webinar on Monday, 22 November 2021. Among the planned talks on the potential of fusion as a carbon-free energy source and the technology needed to make it possible, Takayoshi Omae will present the "Way Forward for the Fusion Community" on behalf of the ITER Organization. The webinar will also include a panel discussion with chair Melanie Windridge (Fusion Industry Association), who will also welcome questions from participants.

This event, hosted by IAEA's Sehila M. Gonzalez de Vicente, begins at 17:00 CEST and closes at 19:15. Participation is free, but registration is required. Please visit the original announcement, here, for registration details and more information.

(Added on 30 November 2021: You can find the recording of the event here.)

COP26 replay: Looking to the future with fusion energy
15 Nov 2021
Fusion energy promises a step change in the way the world's future energy demands are met in a low-carbon, safe and sustainable way.

This was the message from scientists and engineers from the fusion energy community to world leaders on the final day of the COP26 conference in Glasgow, on Friday 12 November 2021.

The event, titled "Looking to the Future with Fusion Energy," featured a diverse range of international voices from the fusion community, with a spectrum of perspectives on fusion energy. The science and engineering challenges involved, the status of ITER, and emerging commercial ventures were all part of the discussion. Panel chair Bernard Bigot, ITER Director-General, was joined on stage by Aneeqa Khan, Research Fellow in Fusion at the University of Manchester and former Monaco-ITER Fellow; Sibylle Günter, head of the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics; Amanda Quadling, Director of Materials at the UK Atomic Energy Authority; and Jane Hotchkiss, President of Energy for the Common Good.

Watch the one-hour panel discussion here.

UKAEA's Ian Chapman: Fusion requires "COVID-scale" investment
12 Nov 2021
The world needs to mount a "COVID-scale" investment worth hundreds of billions of pounds in green technologies if it is to tackle global warming, the head of Britain's nuclear fusion program Ian Chapman warned in an interview with i News on 11 November.

Speaking ahead of a forum on fusion power at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, the chief executive of  the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) warned that global leaders have not yet fully grasped the urgency and importance of fully funding existing and emerging technologies such as fusion, carbon capture and next generation solar power to provide a full portfolio of green energy sources.

"There are all sorts of things that we should be investing hundreds of billions into and we're not. Globally, we are spending hundreds of billions this year on extracting fossil fuels. As a [global] society, we don't have our priorities in the right place. We should realize that this is an existential problem and deal with it in the same way that we have approached COVID-19, where we have invested heavily in the technology that it going to get us out of the crisis. If we treated climate change in the same way, of course we would deal with it quicker."

Chapman argues that fusion has the potential to replace gas and coal as the source of "base load" continuous energy production to supplement weather-dependent sources of green power.

See the full interview at iNews.

Image credit: KSTAR

INFUSED: A clearinghouse for fusion education
10 Nov 2021
On "Youth and Public Empowerment Day" at COP26, ITER and a group of global partners launch INFUSED—the International Fusion Education Initiative. The program curates quality fusion education materials and makes them available to interested students, educators and members of the public. Lectures, MOOCs, videos, virtual tours, games, DIY projects ... see all materials on this ITER webpage: https://www.iter.org/education/infused

New US fusion energy website
10 Nov 2021
The U.S. Fusion Outreach Team, a grassroots organization in the fusion community focused on reducing barriers to outreach efforts, has launched a new centralized website to engage an expanding workforce, media, educators, and the public in the journey toward a world powered by fusion energy.

Steffi Diem and Arturo Dominguez, co-leaders of the U.S. Fusion Outreach Team, are coordinating this effort. "We're excited to launch the U.S. Fusion Energy website to provide resources and up-to-date news on our field," said Dominguez. Diem also added, "We hope that this website will engage the public to be part of the fusion movement, recruit a diverse workforce and to provide a community for U.S. fusioneers."

To learn more, visit the website here.

Source: Phys.org

COP26 replay: Fusion Energy—the State of Art
09 Nov 2021
In the Action Hub amphitheatre at COP26, the ITER Organization was invited to present the status of fusion research—both in the south of France, where ITER is being assembled, and worldwide.

Follow the link below to take the Fusion World Tour as presented by Matteo Barbarino (IAEA), Aneeqa Khan (Research Fellow in Fusion at the University of Manchester and former Monaco-ITER Fellow), and Sabina Griffith (ITER Organization). 

Watch a replay of the 4 November 2021 event here

COP26 replay: Net Zero World/The Youth Perspective
08 Nov 2021
As part of Youth Day at United Nations Climate Change Conference, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) organized an event titled "Net Zero World: The Youth Perspective Today & The Future."

The second panel discussion programmed during the event focused on nuclear fusion's role in long-term sustainable energy and examined how international collaboration and innovation can be used to address technical and commercial challenges. "Nuclear Energy—Net Zero Beyond 2050" featured ITER Project Associate Nitendra Singh (nuclear safety engineer) and former Monaco-ITER Fellow Aneeqa Khan (current Research Fellow in Fusion at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom).

Watch a replay of the 5 November 2021 event here. (Forward to 1:14:15 for the start of the second panel discussion.) 

UKAEA Fusion Fellowships open
08 Nov 2021
Each year the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) aims to appoint outstanding scientists or engineers who have recently completed a doctorate to a two-year research fellowship in any field of fusion research conducted at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE). Candidates need to be highly motivated and show initiative.

The latest campaign is open for application through 17 December 2021

Applicants should possess a degree in physics, engineering, materials science or other relevant subject; a relevant PhD  (preferably in fusion research); a record of peer-reviewed publication in high-quality journals; a high degree of motivation and initiative; and good written and oral communication skills.

See all information on the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE/UKAEA) website.

--Photo credit: UKAEA

Tokamak Building: flat white
08 Nov 2021
All seven levels of the ITER Tokamak Building are now covered in smooth and shiny white paint. 

In a nuclear building, the coating on the floors, walls and ceilings must present a perfectly smooth surface in order to be decontaminated in case of an incident or accident. 

European Domestic Agency contractors used approximately 150 tonnes of resin, primer and paint to transform the raw concrete surfaces of the building into a pristine jewel box. Work continues in the nearby Tritium Building, Site Services Building, and Radio Frequency Building. 

See a recent article on the Fusion for Energy website for more information.

Calling applicants to the FUSION-EP 2022 program
25 Oct 2021
FUSION-EP, organized with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, was created in 2006 to train the next generation of fusion physicists and engineers. Students spend two years studying advanced fusion science and technology to earn a Master of Science in Nuclear Fusion and Engineering Physics.

Applications for the 2022 academic year are opening soon—on 15 November—and will close on 31 January 2022. FUSION-EP also awards scholarships to top-ranked students to cover the participation fee and offers a monthly allowance for two years. And though Aix-Marseille Université is the coordinating institution, there are participating universities all across Europe where students can pursue the FUSION-EP degree.

To learn more about the program, visit the FUSION-EP site here. To apply, see the application page here.

Coming up: virtual Open Doors Day at ITER
25 Oct 2021
The ITER Organization is organizing a virtual Open Doors Day on Wednesday, 27 October 2021.

The three-hour event will be offered in English (afternoon) and French (morning). "Visitors" who sign up through an on-line portal will have a chance to attend a general presentation on the ITER Project, take self-guided virtual visits through the main buildings on site, and browse through a virtual exhibition centre featuring some of ITER's manufacturing and construction partners.

A number of surprises are also planned ... think virtual reality, DIY, livestreams and we've even heard a rumour about a "plasmagician," but we have no more information at this time ... 

(Age recommendation: 7 and up). More than 1,000 people have signed up. Will you join them?

Follow the links to sign up in English or French.

French YouTuber hits 330K views first week with feature on ITER
19 Oct 2021
Dimitri Ferrière, alias Monsieur Bidouille, is a French maker and well known scientific populizer on YouTube whose curiosity takes him from the exploration of topics as varied as perpetual motion and energy, to the internet, space, and the climate. 

Bidouiller, which can be loosely translated as "tinkering,'' "fiddling around to fix," or "creating," is at the centre of his interest in DIY, fablab and alternative solutions.

In September 2021, he released a 50-minute video on ITER, based on a three-day visit to the project site in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance in April 2021. The video reached 330,000 views the first week.

You can watch it (in French) on Monsieur Bidouille's YouTube channel here.

Fusion PhDs to gather in November
18 Oct 2021
Join fellow fusion PhD candidates from all over Europe next month at the annual PhD Event organized by the European Fusion Education Network, FuseNet.

The event, held on line from 22 to 23 November 2021, will feature high-profile keynote speakers, a top-notch scientific program and the much anticipate PechaKucha contest, where students present their research in 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide. There will also be moments to "gather" thanks to creative on-line offerings through the event platform Gather.town.

Registration is open through 31 October 2021 here. See all information on the FuseNet website.

Coming up: virtual Open Doors Day at ITER
11 Oct 2021
The ITER Organization is organizing a virtual Open Doors Day on Wednesday, 27 October 2021.

The three-hour event will be offered in English (afternoon) and French (morning). "Visitors" who sign up through an on-line portal will have a chance to attend a general presentation on the ITER Project, take self-guided virtual visits through the main buildings on site, and browse through a virtual exhibition centre featuring some of ITER's manufacturing and construction partners.

A number of surprises are also planned ... think virtual reality, DIY, livestreams and we've even heard a rumour about a "plasmagician," but we have no more information at this time ... 

(Age recommendation: 7 and up).

Follow the links to sign up in English or French.

Towards a "hydrogen economy"
11 Oct 2021
Whether burning in a fuel cell or engine, or "fusing" in a tokamak, hydrogen will play a major role in clean energy production and consumption. In a recent article in the The European Files, ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot explores the potential benefits of a (near) future "hydrogen economy" that would include fusion as a "highly concentrated baseload energy source" and as a technology that could "produce clean hydrogen" to, among different uses, power transport vehicles.

"Like electricity, hydrogen is not a primary fuel," writes the ITER Director-General. It is produced using different energy sources, fossil fuels among them. Therefore, the environmental impact of this "grey hydrogen" is far from being neutral.

"To make the hydrogen economy truly green," he argues, "we will need a clean source of concentrated baseload energy." Hydrogen fusion has all the characteristics to fill that requirement.

Read the full article here.

Global engineering opportunities in big science
11 Oct 2021
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the European Space Agency (ESA), ITER and the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) came together to host an online career event on 5 October 2021. The information session was designed to inform participants of the many diverse options available for engineers interested in science, technology and space. Four speakers represented the four organizations involved in the event:

Anna Cook from CERN

Elena Saenz from ESA

Deirdre Boilson from ITER

Maria Gracia Labarte from SKAO

These four representatives discussed not only what their organizations do, but also explained what the working culture is like and what they love about their jobs. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to apply, they agreed. Passion is most important.

Though the event was held via livestream, a recording is available on YouTube here.

Power to the People: a new travelling exhibition by EUROfusion
08 Oct 2021
The European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, EUROfusion, is premiering a travelling exhibition on fusion energy that aims to be both educational and participatory.

Fusion, Power to the People, which opens on 8 October in Marseille, France, combines science, art and technology to make a complex topic accessible to all kinds of audiences. The exhibition looks to the past, present and future to help visitors understand what powers the Sun and stars, and show the efforts being made to harness that potential as a new source of clean, abundant and safe energy. Visitors will have the opportunity to download a mobile application for a truly interactive experience.

The exhibition is open, free of charge, in Marseille from 8 October through 19 December. (See information in English and French.) After Marseille, Fusion, Power to the People will travel across Europe.

Manchester Festival of Climate Action
05 Oct 2021
The University of Manchester is hosting a virtual event on the challenges of and possible solutions to climate change from 11-14 October 2021. Over these four days, the festival will use presentations and discussion panels to share four goals: mitigation, adaptation, finance and collaboration. Each day of the event focuses on a different goal and a different question, as posed by the University of Manchester:

11 October: Mitigation

How do we secure global net zero?

12 October: Adaptation

How can we protect our communities and natural habitats?

13 October: Finance

How do we finance change?

14 October: Collaboration

How can we turn ambition into reality?

To answer that final question, ITER will be part of a panel called "Turning fusion from a dream to a reality." Sabina Griffith, Communications Officer, will represent ITER in this panel to discuss the potential of nuclear fusion as a sustainable source of energy. This panel will take place from 18-19:00 CEST, and the entire event is free and open to anyone who would like to attend.

Registration and a full schedule of events may be found at the original announcement here.

IAEA fusion webinar
04 Oct 2021
Scientists, engineers, policymakers, entrepreneurs and investors interested in fusion are invited to join the International Atomic Energy Agency's first fusion webinar on Monday, 22 November 2021. Among the planned talks on the potential of fusion as a carbon-free energy source and the technology needed to make it possible, Takayoshi Omae will present "Way Forward for the Fusion Community" on behalf of the ITER Organization. The webinar will also include a panel discussion with chair Melanie Windridge (Fusion Industry Association), who will also welcome questions from participants.

This event, hosted by IAEA's Sehila M. Gonzalez de Vicente, begins at 17:00 CEST and closes at 19:15. Participation is free, but registration is required. Please visit the original announcement, here, for registration details and more information.

Announcing the Nordic ITER Business Forum
04 Oct 2021
The European Commission and the Industry Liaison Officers of Denmark, Sweden and Finland have organized an event to inform regional businesses about the ITER Project. Both the ITER Organization and Fusion for Energy will present during the forum, and there will also be opportunities for businesses to meet and network.

Depending on how the COVID-19 situation develops in the coming months, the Nordic ITER Business Forum may be held virtually or in-person at the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen. The event will take place from 19 to 20 January 2022, starting at noon CEST and ending at noon the following day.

Registration is open nowplease visit the original announcement here to register.

ITER Talks | Magnet System
04 Oct 2021
Neil Mitchell hosts the third ITER Talks video, now available to watch on ITER's YouTube channel. The former Head of the Magnet Division gives viewers a closer look at how magnets contain and control plasma inside the tokamak.

In his presentation, Neil explains how the superconducting magnetic coils are created and used. Even minor changes within the coils can cause a shift in the magnetic field, and Neil highlights the great need for precision and care as experts work on the coils.

Future installments in the ITER Talks series will focus on other aspects of the ITER Project. Watch the third episode in the series here.

ITER @ IAEA 2021
27 Sep 2021
Each year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) holds a General Conference to discuss topics of nuclear science and technology as well as budgetary and administrative issues. The 65th annual conference took place from 20-24 September 2021 at the Vienna International Centre in Austria, where a number of projects and organizations, including ITER, joined to share their progress with the world.

ITER was represented by Laban Coblentz, head of Communication. In his statement, delivered on behalf of ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot, he emphasized the benefits of the relationship between ITER and the IAEA. As ITER creates the first reactor-scale fusion device, the IAEA has the opportunity to take this blueprint and develop guidelines for fusion around the world. He also reported on ITER's assembly progress and the project's impact on the fusion community.

"Above all, the ITER Project is a tangible demonstration that multinational collaboration is possible at a practical level with countries that are not always aligned on all items," Coblentz said. "But at ITER we are working hand-in-hand toward a common goal: to leave a better legacy with regard to clean energy supply for our children and future generations."

For more information on the 2021 General Conference, see the IAEA site here.

Apply now: SOFT Innovation Prize
27 Sep 2021
The pursuit of fusion has led to many promising advancements in physics and technology. To highlight excellence in fusion research and innovation, and to stimulate the fusion research community to strengthen innovation and foster an entrepreneurial culture, the European Commission is offering to reward three fusion innovation proposals.

The SOFT Innovation Prize is open to researchers, research teams and industry players who would like to propose devices or methods that have been developed in magnetic confinement fusion research. Each proposal will be judged on its market potential and replicability as well as its originality.

The contest opened on 15 September 2021 and will close on 18 January 2022 at 17:00 CEST. After the proposals have been reviewed, prizes will be awarded at the 32nd Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT) in September 2022.

To learn more or submit a proposal, see the original announcement here.

FuseNet Master Event
20 Sep 2021
From 5-6 October, FuseNet is hosting a virtual event for students pursuing their master's degree at a European university in fusion-related fields. The program will mix educational and social events so students can meet and network while learning about the industry and science of fusion. Speakers will present on different aspects of fusion to the whole group or in smaller side sessions.

On the second day of the event, there will be a Fusion Power Pitch competition that invites attendees to present for 180 seconds on a fusion topic of interest. However, due to the limited time of the event, only 15-20 presentations will be selected and FuseNet asks applicants to add a short pitch to their registration form if they would like to participate in the Fusion Power Pitch.

The event starts on 5 October at 9:00 CEST and ends the following day at 18:00. To learn more, please see the original announcement on FuseNet's site here. (Registration is still possible, but participation in all events cannot be guaranteed.)

Open call for non-fusion applications of fusion technologies
20 Sep 2021
Until 15 October, the European agency Fusion for Energy is holding an open call for European companies and organizations to send in applications for proposals of non-fusion applications of fusion technologies and processes. Fusion has brought new advances in science and technology, and some of these innovations may be useful in other contexts outside of fusion.

This open call encourages applicants to think creatively and practically; Fusion for Energy will evaluate applications based on their feasibility, their innovation potential and their socio-economic impact on the company and ecosystem. Once the open call ends, Fusion for Energy will select one application to receive EUR 35,000 in funding. The results will be announced around January 2022.

On 21 September, there will be an information and Q&A session so interested parties may learn more. The event will start at 11:00 CEST and will run until noon, allowing for presentations from Fusion for Energy and for audience questions. Registration for the information session may be found here.

For more details about the open call and how to submit an application, visit the original announcement by Fusion for Energy here.

ITER Talks | Blanket System
13 Sep 2021
The ITER Talks series was introduced over the summer as a new outlet to educate viewers on the ITER Organization and fusion science. The first video, available for viewing here, was hosted by Laban Coblentz, head of Communications, and served as a general introduction to ITER.

The second instalment, just released, delves into one of the major machine components: the blanket. René Raffray, ITER's Blanket Section leader, presents the many functions of the blanket system and the process of its construction.

René also recounts the history of blanket design, as it adapted to new knowledge uncovered over the years. The current design is complex, with many smaller pieces that must come together before the blanket is ready to be installed. Once the blanket is complete, it will act as a shield to protect the vacuum vessel from the energy produced by the fusion reaction.

Watch the second episode of the ITER Talks here.

Podcast | Building stars on Earth
07 Sep 2021
Friday, 3 September, Climate Now released a podcast and video episode featuring Aneeqa Khan, Research Fellow in Nuclear Fusion at the University of Manchester (and former Monaco-ITER Postdoctoral Fellow), and Sir Steven Cowley, director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. These experts discussed the current engineering hurdles in developing a sustainable fusion reaction and the future of fusion as a competitive energy source.

Climate Now is a multimedia resource that explains the key scientific ideas, technologies and policies relevant to the global climate crisis. Their mission is to provide policy makers, business leaders, investors and journalists with the scientific and economic context necessary to make good decisions about policy formulation, capital allocation and narrative focus.

Listen to the podcast here, or watch the video here.

European Fusion Teacher Day 2021: 1 October
06 Sep 2021
The European Fusion Education Network, FuseNet, is organizing its second annual European Fusion Teacher Day on 1 October 2021. Open to all secondary school science and physics teachers in Europe, the virtual event aims to introduce educators to nuclear fusion and exchange about how the subject can be taught in school. The ultimate goal is to increase exposure of students to the subject at the secondary level in order to spark interest and enthusiasm in the field.

Because the event is open to educators across Europe, the half-day program begins with local sessions via Zoom. After the local sessions, participants will come together for a global livestream from 15.00-17.00 CEST before returning to a local follow-up session. The ITER Organization is one of the featured participants during the global livestream. 

Participation is free and registration is open now. See this page to learn more.

Three hundred teachers participated in last year's event. Read more about the first European Fusion Teacher Day here.

Fusion-based intellectual property filings on the rise
06 Sep 2021
The journal Fusion Engineering and Design has published an article reporting research done by George Washington University's Business School on the growth of fusion patent filings. This paper, written by Elias G. Carayannis and John Draper, and entitled "The growth of intellectual property ownership in the private-sector fusion industry," examines the increase in applications for fusion-related patents over the past several years.

In particular, Carayannis and Draper focus on the patents of Fusion Industry Association (FIA) members. FIA is a US-based trade association and brings together private-sector fusion energy companies. This paper not only examines how many patents these FIA members have introduced, but also organizes the patents by type to show the variety of technology being created and protected as intellectual property. Most of these patents have not yet been granted, but the increase of filing activity highlights the rapid expansion of fusion projects and technology in recent years.

See the full article here. (Elias G. Carayannis, John Draper (2021), The growth of intellectual property ownership in the private-sector fusion industry, Fusion Engineering and Design, Volume 173, 112815, ISSN 0920-3796.)

ITER participates in Russian Science Marathon
23 Aug 2021
On Friday, 20 August, the Homo-Science Marathon took place in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. The event was organized by Rosatom and the Znaniye Foundation for the purpose of discussing recent scientific accomplishments and building a bridge between fundamental and applied research.

The Marathon was opened by Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev. ITER Senior Advisor Alexander Alekseev presented the ITER fusion project and Lei Chen, one of the ITER-Monaco postdoctoral researchers, talked about her personal motivation in pursuing a career in fusion science.

See this link to the event: https://homo-science.ru/

UKAEA Contest: "The Art of Fusion"
27 Jul 2021
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) holds an annual art competition, "The Art of Fusion," so residents of the United Kingdom can display their artistic skills while highlighting the beauty and complexity of fusion science. This year, the theme of the contest shifts specifically to sustainability and the role of fusion as a sustainable source of energy. Entrants are encouraged to recycle materials for their artwork and get creative with the theme of sustainability.

The winners and runners-up of the competition will be invited to tour the Culham Science Centre in South Oxfordshire. The winners' artwork will be showcased on the UKAEA website and printed on postcards to be used at UKAEA events.

The competition opened on 22 July and will close on 16 September. Judging is split into three age categories: 7-12 years, 13-17 years, and 18 years and older. Entries are accepted via the UKAEA's website, and further details on the competition can be found there as well.

FuseNet Master Event
23 Jul 2021
Are you currently a fusion or plasma physics master student, or are you starting next academic year? Looking for an opportunity to meet the community and learn more about this fascinating subject?

On 5 and 6 October 2021, FuseNet (the European Fusion Education Network) is organizing its first-ever Master Event. All master students in fusion-related fields are welcome to join the online event. The event will be interesting to both students who are just getting started in fusion, and to students who are graduating. In two days, you will learn about state-of-the-art fusion topics and the role of industry in interactive lectures.

During the casual social events you will meet fusion students from all over the world, and create a network of future colleagues.

To register, see this page.

JT-60SA: The latest on integrated commissioning
22 Jul 2021
The JT-60SA tokamak—a joint program of fusion research and development agreed and co-financed by the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the government of Japan—entered its integrated commissioning phase in late 2020, after a six-year project to modify and modernize the existing JT-60U tokamak at the Naka Fusion Institute in Japan.

During the step-by-step integrated commissioning process, the air was first evacuated from the vacuum vessel and surrounding cryostat before the device's superconducting magnets were slowly cooled to the temperature of 4 K (- 269 °C). Next, the vacuum vessel was "baked" to 200 °C to rid it of moisture and any possible residual contaminants. Finally the magnets were energized—first independently and then as a full group.

In March 2021, during the coil energization test of poloidal field coil EF1, feeder joints were damaged. Experts from both Japan and Europe investigated the cause of the damage and determined that the joints of the EF1 feeders needed to be reinforced with greater insulation.

Repairs will be carried out on the incriminated joints and others to prevent recurrence of the incident. Once the repairs and improvements are completed, EF1 will undergo further testing to determine that it can withstand even worst-case conditions and ensure that it is ready for operation.

JT-60SA integrated commissioning is expected to resume in February 2022.

Find out more on the JT-60SA website.

News from the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator
13 Jul 2021
Thanks to a newly-installed actively-cooled exhaust, the German stellarator Wendelstein 7-X at IPP Greifswald will be able to maintain its fusion plasma for up to 30 minutes—a fusion milestone.

On Friday 18 June 2021, the last of a total of 60 divertor modules was installed in the Wendelstein 7-X plasma vessel. With this, an extremely important technical milestone was reached and, after 20 months of assembly time, all actively-cooled divertor target modules have now been successfully integrated. 

The current engineering shutdown will continue throughout the year so that a new and improved W7-X can restart its fusion experiments in 2022. According to the current plan, the assembly of the remaining vessel installations, including rework, can be completed by 9 December 2021.

Read the original story here.

Japanese-language webinar on ITER
08 Jul 2021
On 29 July 2021, join the Head of the Japanese Domestic Agency, Makoto Sugimoto, and ITER Chief Strategist, Takayoshi Omae, for a Japanese-language webinar on the ITER Project. 

The webinar is open to all and is free of charge. The panelists will introduce nuclear fusion, give the latest updates on the ITER Project, and take questions from participants.

See all information at this link.

European Fusion Teacher Day 2021: 1 October
06 Jul 2021
The European Fusion Education Network, FuseNet, is organizing the second annual European Fusion Teacher Day on 1 October 2021. Open to all secondary school science and physics teachers in Europe, the virtual event aims to introduce educators to nuclear fusion and exchange about how the subject can be taught in school. The ultimate goal is to increase exposure of students to the subject at the secondary level in order to spark interest and enthusiasm in the field.

Because the event is open to educators across Europe, the half-day program begins with local sessions via Zoom. After the local sessions, participants will come together for a global livestream from 15.00-17.00 CEST before returning to a local follow-up session. The ITER Organization is one of the featured speakers during the global livestream; other representatives of the international fusion community will be announced soon. 

Participation is free and registration is open now. See this page to learn more.

Three hundred teachers participated in last year's event. Read more about the first European Fusion Teacher Day here.

IAEA Technical Meeting on Fusion Data Processing announced
24 Jun 2021
IAEA Technical Meeting on Fusion Data Processing, Validation and Analysis will take place from 30 November to 3 December 2021 in Chengdu, China, with both in-person and remote participation foreseen.

The objective of the meeting is to provide a forum for discussing topics of relevance to fusion data processing, validation and analysis with a view to addressing the needs of next-step fusion devices such as ITER. The validation and analysis of experimental data obtained from diagnostics used to characterize fusion plasmas are crucial for a knowledge-based understanding of the physical processes governing the dynamics of these plasmas. The meeting aims, in particular, at fostering discussions about research and development advancements in these topics made in the current major fusion confinement devices. A special focus will be placed upon data analysis for ITER and DEMO, with particular attention paid to opportunities for the use of Artificial Intelligence for control activities.

More details, including how to contribute, can be found here.

ITER's history of diplomacy
17 Jun 2021
An article published in History and Technology on 1 June 2021 explores ITER's history of diplomatic negotiations. A project of such magnitude, author Anna Åberg points out, requires collaboration and compromise as people from vastly different backgrounds come together to create a complex machine.

"This is true not only for the top-level politicians," Åberg writes, "[but also] all the way down to the work site itself where German welders may work under Indian supervision following French nuclear-safety protocols."

Collaboration within ITER has changed over time as the project becomes more complex and participants face a variety of new challenges. The realization of the ITER machine is only possible when everyone is willing to compromise and come together to solve evolving issues.

Read the original article here.

"Super-H Mode" shows growing promise at DIII-D
14 Jun 2021
A high-performance fusion regime called Super-H mode is being used on the DIII-D tokamak (US) to test methods to control heat and particle flow at the edge of the fusion plasma. 

The theoretical model for Super-H Mode was developed several years ago by researchers at General Atomics (which operates DIII-D for the US Department of Energy's Office of Science), the University of York (UK), and the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (UK). It works by increasing temperature and pressure in the outer region of the plasma, called the pedestal. Higher pressures and temperatures at the pedestal lead to much higher fusion performance in the core.

The new approach uses advanced control algorithms and optimized methods of cooling the edge of the plasma without excessively degrading reactions in the core. The results identify a pathway for increased performance at ITER and the fusion power plants that will follow.

Read the full press release here.

-- Image courtesy of General Atomics.

Now available: virtual visits of ITER
07 Jun 2021
The ITER Organization has added a permanent virtual visit option to its visit program.

Developed in reply to the COVID-19 pandemic and the necessary restrictions to in-person visiting, the virtual visit now co-exists alongside other options, including individual and group visits, on the ITER webpage dedicated to visitors.

The virtual visit option will remain available to the public even after COVID-related restrictions end, allowing fusion aficionados from around the globe a chance to better appreciate the progress on the ITER construction site.

What can you expect from a virtual visit? In approximately 90 minutes, the ITER visit team will introduce you to the world of fusion, before explaining the ITER Project in detail. Highlights include a video shot by drone and a tour of all the main buildings on site through immersive 360° images.  

If you are interested in booking a virtual visit of ITER, please see the Visits page of the ITER website and click on "Virtual Visits." The calendar indicates the open slots for group or individual virtual visits in either English or French.  

Come and join us. We look forward to welcoming you (virtually) to ITER!

--The ITER Visits team

"Fusioneers" unite in Denmark
31 May 2021
Four Danish universities have collaborated to create DANfusion, a government-funded consortium allowing researchers to work together and share resources as they study fusion physics and engineering. DANfusion includes research groups from the Technical University of Denmark, Aarhus University, Aalborg University, and the University of Southern Denmark.

Through DANfusion funding, researchers will have the opportunity to visit national and international fusion experiments to gain greater knowledge in their field, and to accumulate hands-on experience through fusion-relevant summer schools and resources like the Technical University of Denmark's NORTH tokamak.

The overarching goal of DANfusion is to strengthen the bond among national scientific communities through shared knowledge and united research efforts.

Read the EUROfusion announcement here.

Webinar: Mobilizing Investment into Fusion Energy
28 May 2021
The Stellar Energy Foundation and co-host Fusion Industry Association are holding a webinar, entitled "Mobilizing Investment into Fusion Energy," on 24 June 2021.

The event features Ralph Izzo, the Chairman, President and CEO of Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (PSEG), and Paul Dabbar, former Under Secretary for Science with the U.S. Department of Energy. The moderator, Chris Gadomski, is the Head of Research, Nuclear at BloombergNEF.

The webinar will take place from 22:00-23:00 CEST. There is no fee to attend, but please contact kfortini@stellarenergyfoundation.org to be added to the invitation database.

Read the original event announcement here.

A video recording of the webinar is available here.

ITER International School: new dates
26 May 2021
The ITER Organization plans a regular, one-week ITER International School for young scientists and engineers around a specific theme. The School locations alternate between France and one of the seven ITER Members. 

Before the global pandemic made travel and gathering impossible, a 2020 ITER International School, co-organized with Aix-Marseille University (France), was planned on the topic of "The Impact and Consequences of Energetic Particles in Fusion Plasmas." First pushed back to 2021, the decision has now been made to hold this School in summer 2023. More details will be provided on the re-scheduled IIS 2020 in autumn 2022 on this ITER webpage.

In the interim, a summer 2022 ITER International School will be hosted by the US Burning Plasma Organization. Further details will be published about IIS 2022 on the ITER website in autumn 2021.

The FEC goes to London in 2023
21 May 2021
The 29th biennial IAEA Fusion Energy Conference will be held in London in October 2023, hosted by the UK Atomic Energy Authority's Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. Further details on the event will be shared as information becomes available.

Watch the original announcement by UKAEA here

Fusion research: social scientists and humanities scholars weigh in
21 May 2021
A virtual symposium on fusion research will take place on Friday, 18 June, from 1:30-6:00 p.m. CEST.

This event is organized by PhD students Richelle Boone (Leiden University) and Michiel Bron (Maastricht University), and aims to explore fusion from the perspectives of social sciences and the humanities. The symposium will feature seven sessions with experts presenting the historical, philosophical, sociological, economic and political aspects of fusion.

The symposium is free to attend, but registration is required.

See the event page here.

(P.S. The event was recorded and can be viewed back through this link.)

IAEA Bulletin: Fusion Energy
20 May 2021
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) publishes a quarterly Bulletin dedicated to educating readers on nuclear technology and its peaceful uses. The latest volume of the Bulletin explores the possibilities of fusion.

The Bulletin contains thirteen articles that explain the mechanics of fusion and highlight a few of the fusion projects currently developing around the world, including the ITER project. An article written by Wolfgang Picot, entitled "ITER: The World's Largest Fusion Experiment," offers a snapshot of ITER's progress in making fusion a reality.

The IAEA Bulletin, both current and past, is free to browse online. Find the latest issue on fusion here.

Students of fusion: design a book cover for the IAEA
05 May 2021
The International Atomic Energy Agency, supported by the European Fusion Education Network FuseNet, is about to release a new textbook on fusion technology. The publication is a follow-up to the IAEA textbook on fusion physics, which is consultable here

All Bachelor, Masters and Doctoral students of fusion are invited to submit a cover design proposal, in a Book Cover Contest that ends on Wednesday 30 June 2021. 

See all information and instructions on the FuseNet website.

PhDiaFusion 2021 announced
04 May 2021
Organized every two years by CEA Cadarache (France) and the Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN (Poland), the PhDiaFusion Summer School of Plasma Diagnostics is designed for graduate students and their tutors in the spirit of a "master and apprentice" approach.

The next edition will be held from 20 to 24 September 2021 on the topic of "Neutron diagnostics development for ITER, DEMO and IFMIF-DONES." 

For all information visit this page.

Reminder: One week to FEC 2020
03 May 2021
The 28th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2020) kicks off in just one week on 10 May 2021. For anyone who would like to join as an observer, you must register through this link by 7 May 2021. (Please note: observers can watch all presentations, but will not have access to the Q&A feature of the virtual platform or be able to interact.)

The biennial Fusion Energy Conference is the premier gathering for the international fusion science community. It fosters the exchange of scientific and technical results in nuclear fusion research and development and provides a forum for the discussion of key physics and technology issues as well as innovative concepts of direct relevance to the use of nuclear fusion as a future source of energy.

The 28th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference will be held as a virtual web congress from 10 to 15 May 2021. Organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it is supported by the Government of France through the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and the ITER Organization.

To learn more about the six-day event, please visit the conference website: https://fec2020.fr/ 

58th Culham Plasma Physics Summer School
29 Apr 2021
The 58h Culham Plasma Physics Summer School, planned in person from 6 to 17 September 2021, is open for applications.

The aim of the Summer School is to provide an introduction to the fundamental principles of plasma physics, together with a broad understanding of its fields of application. The organizers of the School assume no previous knowledge of the subject, but familiarity with electromagnetism and applied mathematics at first degree level would be helpful. Lecturers are drawn from the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), and leading European universities. All are renowned experts in their fields.

The deadline for applications is 30 July.

For more details please visit: https://culhamsummerschool.org.uk/

Fusion CDT: Autumn 2021 applications open now
29 Apr 2021
The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in the Science and Technology of Fusion Energy is accepting applications for Autumn 2021 entry (plasma strand).

Potential projects are listed on this Fusion CDT webpage

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the main UK government agency for funding research and training in engineering and the physical sciences. Students undertake a 4 year PhD, where the first year allows students to explore the research area and build strong expertise in their "home" discipline while developing the skills and knowledge to cross disciplinary boundaries effectively. Students also undertake a formal programme of taught coursework to develop and enhance technical knowledge across a range of appropriate disciplines, as well as enhancing skills.

Qualified overseas applicants are welcome to apply; however, the availability of fully funded positions is limited.

For all application information see this page on the Fusion CDT website.

IAEA webinar: Careers for women in fusion (14 April)
08 Apr 2021
Are you a female student or a young professional in the field of nuclear physics or nuclear engineering? Are you wondering in which area to specialize, or what the right next step in your career is? Then this IAEA webinar featuring careers for women in fusion science and technology might be the right one for you!

Five renowned female fusion experts will highlight their own career paths and what motivated them to start working and stay in this field. They will discuss the role of women in fusion science and technology, what is needed to increase the representation of female experts in this field and why fusion offers a promising career for women. 

Date: 15:00 CET on 14 April 2021
Register for the event here: https://bit.ly/2Phnggv
Password for the event: fusion1!

Document deadlines for the Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2020)
31 Mar 2021
The 28th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2020) will take place on line from 10 to 15 May 2021. Deadlines are fast approaching for the submittal of documents:

Deadline for submitting manuscripts and other materials (presentations, summary slides, posters, journal articles): 9 April 2021

Deadline for submitting recorded presentations: 15 April 2021 

See the IAEA FEC 2020 website for guidelines and uploading instructions. To register as an observer complete Form A here (right margin). Potential sponsors and journalists should consult the local organizer website here.

A new design for a compact fusion reactor in the United States
30 Mar 2021
Scientists at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, California, have released a new design for a compact fusion reactor that can generate electricity and help define the technology necessary for commercial fusion power. The approach is based on the "Advanced Tokamak" concept pioneered by the DIII-D program, which enables a higher-performance, self-sustaining configuration that holds energy more efficiently than in typical pulsed configurations, allowing it to be built at a reduced scale and cost.

"The key to our approach is to raise the pressure inside the tokamak," said project lead Dr. Richard Buttery. "This makes more fusion occur, allowing us to reduce the current, which in turn makes the plasma easier to sustain and more stable. Our simulations show that by carefully shaping the plasma and moving the current toward its edge, we can suppress turbulent heat losses and support higher pressures at lower currents, to reach a state where the plasma sustains itself. This enables a device that can simply be turned on, generating electricity continuously in a steady state."

Read the General Atomics press release here.

Inside an ITER vacuum vessel factory
30 Mar 2021
A new video issued by Fusion for Energy, the European Domestic Agency, takes us onto the shop floor at Walter Tosto where three ITER vacuum vessel sectors are in various stages of fabrication.

Each 440-tonne sector is formed from four segments, and each segment requires the same step-by-step fabrication route: contractors form and weld the inner shell, attach inner ribs and support housings, install in-wall shielding blocks, and—in the final activity to complete the segments—fit and weld the outer shell.

Europe—responsible for delivering five sectors to ITER—is working with the AMW Consortium (Ansaldo Nucleare, Mangiarotti, Walter Tosto) and an extensive network of European subcontractors. At Walter Tosto, in Chieti, Italy, teams are currently finalizing dimension checks on the sub-parts of sector #5, and completing welding on the segments of sectors #4 and #9.

Watch the two-minute video here.

A promising pathway for high-performance fusion plasmas?
15 Mar 2021
Cooperative research between the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in USA and the Institute of Plasma Physics (ASIPP) of the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) in China has identified a key approach to creating plasma conditions that will be necessary for steady-state operation of ITER. This new approach shows promise in avoiding potential edge instabilities in the plasma that can pose increased plasma-material interaction challenges.

Plasma instabilities known as edge-localized modes (ELMs) are a challenge to stable operation of fusion reactors. Effective ELM control is particularly important in high-confinement, steady-state fusion plasmas such as ITER. The research at DIII-D and EAST found that maintaining high density at the edge of the plasma and a high density ratio between the pedestal bottom and top can reduce the severity of ELMs.

"Combining ELM control with high fusion performance will be critical for efficient operation of ITER and the power plants that come after it," said XU Guosheng. "These results are an important step toward practical fusion energy."

One approach to ELM control has been creating plasma conditions in which ELMs may occur, but are much smaller. Known as "grassy" ELMs, these conditions have been achieved on other devices, but often under parameters that are not suitable for large, long pulse devices like ITER. Experiments on DIII-D demonstrated a grassy ELM regime at an ITER-relevant parameters.

Read the full press release here.

Register for the Remote ITER Business Meeting
15 Mar 2021
In lieu of an in-person ITER Business Forum this year, the ITER Organization is planning a two-day Remote ITER Business Meeting, from 6 to 7 April 2021.

The purpose is the same: to inform the business community about upcoming contract opportunities at ITER and to create the opportunity for businesses to meet and plan together through B2B meetings.

It will also be possible to meet project specialists in one-to-one Skype sessions on a variety of topics, including how to set up a business in the south of France with the Welcome Around ITER network and specific contract opportunities (Hot Cell, maintenance services, Tritium Plant, remote maintenance, and European contract opportunities through Fusion for Energy).  

To participate, fill out your pre-registration form on this website: https://www.iter.org/ribm2021. The deadline is 6 April 2021.

EUROfusion awards 16 research grants
11 Mar 2021
The EUROfusion consortium has announced the award of 16 fusion energy research grants across Europe for the development of innovative new ideas and techniques.

EUROfusion makes grants available on behalf of the European Commission's Euratom program. In its meeting on 3 March 2021, the General Assembly of EUROfusion selected 16 out of 72 Enabling Research proposals based on the recommendations of the scientific boards in four research categories. EUROfusion will invest a total of € 20.1 million in these projects, of which € 9.9 million comes as a contribution from the consortium.

The four research categories are: materials, theory and modelling, technology and systems, and inertial fusion. 

View the list of the recipients and their projects on the EUROfusion website.

JT-60SA: full energization of toroidal field magnets
03 Mar 2021
The 18 toroidal field magnets of the JT-60SA tokamak in Japan are now fully energized at a current of 25.7kA. Reaching the full design magnetic field for this coil set is another step of the commissioning activities underway on this collaborative project, financed and executed jointly by Europe and Japan. 

Each of the 18 coils is 7.5 metres high and 4.5 metres wide; together they weigh 370 tonnes. They produce a magnetic field running around the torus that has a strength of 2.25T at the centre of its cross section. This field is fundamental to confining the superheated plasma of the tokamak.

The successful generation of the toroidal field demonstrates the simultaneous operation of numerous tokamak systems, in particular the cryoplant, cryodistribution, the cryostat, the thermal shields, power supply, instrumentation, and central control. The commissioning phase will culminate with first plasma later this year. 

More information here.

JET: A crucial "dress rehearsal"
01 Mar 2021
An article published on 22 February 2021 in Nature highlights the importance of the upcoming campaign on the JET tokamak (UK) for ITER.

"Nuclear fusion experiments with deuterium and tritium at the Joint European Torus are a crucial dress rehearsal for the mega-experiment," writes author Elizabeth Gibney. "JET's experiments will help scientists to predict how the plasma in the ITER tokamak will behave and to craft the mega-experiment's operating settings."

Chief ITER scientist Tim Luce agrees. "It's the closest we can get to achieving ITER conditions in present-day machines."

JET will be running experiments with hydrogen isotopes tritium and deuterium—the very fuel mix that ITER will use. Some experiments will use just tritium; others will combine deuterium and tritium in equal proportions. Both types of experiment are important, the author explains, because a key goal is to understand the effect of tritium's larger mass on plasma behaviour (tritium has two neutrons in its nucleus, whereas deuterium has one and hydrogen has none). That will help in predicting the impact of using different isotopes in ITER.

Read the full article here.

Nuclear News: "A good time for fusion"
18 Feb 2021
"A [US] fusion plant is still years away, but it is definitely getting closer."

So concludes the Editor-in-Chief of Nuclear News, the American Nuclear Society's flagship publication, in the preface to the January 2021 issue. Nuclear News dedicates more than 50 pages to fusion energy, at a time when there is an increasing groundswell of interest in fusion in the United States and coalescence around the idea of constructing a fusion pilot plant

Highlights include a major contribution by ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot on the role of ITER; an article on public/private partnerships as the ideal way of advancing technology; features on fusion safety and the regulatory environment; input from startups looking to commercialize fusion energy; and an editorial by US ITER Project Office Director Kathy McCarthy, Associate Laboratory Director for Fusion and Fission Energy and Science at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

See a preview of the issue, or subscribe on the American Nuclear Society's website.

Bringing Fusion to the U.S. Grid: Concensus Report
18 Feb 2021
The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine has released a report calling for the construction in the US of a 50-megawatt pilot fusion power plant.

At the request of the US Department of Energy (DOE), a committee of 12 scientists has written Bringing Fusion to the U.S. Grid, with the aim of providing guidance on the key goals and innovation needed to build an electricity-producing fusion power plant at lowest possible capital cost.

This is the third major US report on fusion in 24 months.

  • - In 2019, the National Academies published the Final Report of the Committee on a Strategic Plan for U.S. Burning Plasma Research, recommending 1) that the US remain a partner in ITER "as the most cost-effective way to gain experience with a burning plasma at the scale of a power plant," and 2) that the US start a "national program of accompanying research and technology leading to the construction of a compact pilot plant." (Read more here.)
  • - In March 2020, hundreds of scientists representing a broad range of national labs, universities, and private ventures released A Community Plan for Fusion Energy and Discovery Plasma Sciences. It offers a consensus view of the bold steps to take nationally to deliver fusion energy and advance plasma science in the United States, including maintaining participation in ITER. (See more here.)
The new publication builds on both reports.

"Fusion energy offers the prospect of addressing the nation's energy needs and contributing to the transition to a low-carbon emission electrical generation infrastructure. Technology and research results from U.S. investments in the major fusion burning plasma experiment known as ITER, coupled with a strong foundation of research funded by the Department of Energy, position the United States to begin planning for its first fusion pilot plant. Strong interest from the private sector is an additional motivating factor, as the process of decarbonizing and modernizing the nation's electric infrastructure accelerates and companies seek to lead the way."

Read the full report here.

Or view the slides from a recent webinar on the report.

A new website for JT-60SA
16 Feb 2021
The JT-60SA tokamak—just a few months from its first plasma as the updated "Super Advanced" satellite for ITER—has launched a new website.

The site features updated content and style, and aims to provide a wide audience, including students, the press, researchers and members of the general public, with information and regular status updates on JT-60SA.

Since the completion of assembly, the Japanese and European joint team is now preparing the device for first plasma, which is planned for spring 2021. Integrated commissioning is underway, including cooldown and progressive coil energization. 

Read all about it on the new JT-60SA website.

Material testing for fusion
15 Feb 2021
Because the mechanical and thermal properties of materials can change substantially under neutron irradiation, one of the major challenges for the demonstration of fusion electricity is to develop neutron-resistant materials.

As part of the EUROfusion Roadmap to the Realisation of Fusion Energy (here), the Belgian nuclear research lab SCK CEN tested ITER baseline structural materials like tungsten, copper and steel during a lengthy regimen of high heat and intense neutron radiation flux. Inside SCK CEN's fission research reactor BR2, the material samples spent two years facing a temperature of up to 1200 degrees Celsius in a hail of neutrons from uranium fission.

SCK CEN will now partner with other European research labs to investigate how the high speed neutrons have impacted the thermo-mechanical properties of the irradiated samples.

Read the full report on the EUROfusion website.

--Image: A basic plasma-facing unit consisting of a tungsten block and a copper cooling water pipe. Source: SCK CEN

 
Fusion? A superfast way of exploring the solar system and beyond
08 Feb 2021
Harnessing fusion energy will provide humankind with a virtually unlimited, clean and safe energy source. It might also open the way to a new, superfast way of exploring the solar system and beyond.

Using the power of fusion to propel rockets to velocities otherwise unattainable, and hence dramatically shortening the duration of space travel, is not a new idea: at space agencies throughout the world, nuclear fusion propulsion has been on the agenda for decades.

The latest news in the field, however, does not come from a space agency but from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), one of the major plasma research institutions worldwide. A few years ago, Fatima Ebrahimi, a principal research physicist there, began thinking about "the similarities between a car's exhaust and the high-velocity exhaust particles created by PPPL's National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX)." During operation, she reflected, "NSTX produces magnetic bubbles called plasmoids that move at around 20 kilometres per second, which seemed to me a lot like thrust."

Ebrahimi nurtured and streamlined the concept for a few years and, in December 2020, introduced it in the Journal of Plasma Physics. The title ("An Alfvenic reconnecting plasmoid thruster"*) was rather austere but the content quite mind-boggling: according to simulations, Ebrahimi's plasma thruster could eject particles at velocities of up to 1,500 kilometres per second. All of sudden, Mars and the moon of Jupiter are appearing much closer.

Read a detailed article on the PPPL website.

*Ebrahimi, F. (2020). An Alfvenic reconnecting plasmoid thruster. Journal of Plasma Physics, 86(6), 905860614. doi:10.1017/S0022377820001476

 

Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2020) goes virtual
01 Feb 2021
Due to Covid-19 pandemic and related global restrictions, the Local Organizing Committee of the 28th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC2020) has decided, in collaboration with the IAEA, to hold the conference on a virtual platform with the same dates maintained, from 10- 15 May 2021.

In addition to a full program, which will be available globally in appropriate time zones for each audience, we will also ensure opportunities for sponsoring and networking. If you are a potential sponsor and interested in finding out more about these opportunities, you can contact us at sponsor@fec2020.fr

Consult the FEC 2020 scientific program here.

Registration opens on 1 March 2021; more information at https://fec2020.fr/.

 

Register now for the Remote ITER Business Meeting
25 Jan 2021
The detailed program for the ITER Organization's Remote ITER Business Meeting is now available at the following address.
 
Over the two-day remote meeting on 7 - 8 April 2021, experts from the ITER Organization will be presenting information about upcoming contracts and procurement needs including the ITER Hot Cell Complex, the Tritium Plant, and maintenance services, among others. Experts will be also available for one-to-one meetings with industry representatives.
 
The conference is free of charge but advance registration is required. You can register now through 6 April 2021 at this address.
Watch Japan's Annual Symposium on ITER and Broader Approach activities
19 Jan 2021
On 22 December 2020, the Fusion Energy Forum of Japan (FEFJ) held its annual Symposium on the ITER Project and Broader Approach* activities. Featuring speakers from government, business, academia, and science, the 3.5-hour event covered fusion energy policy in Japan, progress in domestic and international fusion projects (including ITER and the Broader Approach), frontiers of research, and industrial applications.

See all speakers and presentations at this link

Watch the event on YouTube in Japanese or with a voiceover in English.  

* The Broader Approach activities, financed by Europe and Japan, aim to accelerate the realization of fusion energy. Find out more here.

Europe: new fusion technology transfer award
18 Jan 2021
The European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy, has opened a contest to reward companies for the commercial use of fusion technologies in non-fusion markets. 

Open to all European companies and organizations, the Technology Transfer Award competition aims to encourage and promote projects where a fusion technology or know-how is used or is planned to be used outside of fusion applications.

Applications will be evaluated according to the resources and efforts deployed by the candidate to achieve commercial use of the technology in a non-fusion market, as well as the socio-economic impact of the project on the market. The selected project will receive a sole prize of €10,000.

Applications are open from 18 January 2021 to 18 March 2021 at this link.

Coil energization begins at JT-60SA
14 Jan 2021
As part of its countdown to first plasma, the JT-60SA tokamak has entered the coil energization phase. Superconducting coil EF2 has been supplied with up to 1 kA of power. 

This major commissioning milestone comes after the recent completion of the cooldown of the magnet system to 4.5 K and the completion of power supply testing. In the next days the current supplied to EF2 will be gradually increased as the quench detection circuits and the power supply controllers are tuned.

JT-60SA is a collaborative project, financed and executed jointly by Europe and Japan under the Broader Approach agreement. Following a six-year upgrade program, the teams expect to begin experiments imminently.

Read more about the project here.

Russian-language film on ITER
13 Jan 2021
ITER Russia (ROSATOM) has teamed with documentary film makers to create a 38-minute feature on fusion and ITER called "On the Way to the Sun" (На пути к Солнцу). 

In 2021, the film makers will present it at leading international and domestic festivals.

You can view it free of charge on YouTube (in Russian) at this address.

European DEMO moves to conceptual design phase
13 Jan 2021
From 19 to 25 November 2020, an independent expert panel reviewed EUROfusion's R&D and design work on DEMO, Europe's future demonstration fusion power plant. Following this in-depth review, the next step of the European Roadmap to Fusion Energy, the conceptual design phase, can begin.

EUROfusion is taking a staged approach to designing DEMO, with industry-standard review practices including a gate review process. Each project phase is reviewed by a panel of independent experts before the project can advance to the next phase. This allows the DEMO team to learn from the experience of ITER and guarantees that DEMO has the support and involvement of the European fusion community and the companies that will design and construct it.

Read more about the DEMO gate review on the EUROfusion website.

 

IAEA: Fusion Crowdsourcing Challenge Launched
13 Jan 2021
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the European Fusion Education Network (FuseNet) are calling on fusion enthusiasts around the world to review scientific literature and online resources to find as many zero-dimensional, or independent, design parameters as possible for active fusion tokamak and stellarator experimental reactors in the IAEA's interactive Fusion Device Information System (FusDIS) database. The data collected through the challenge, which is aimed at students and young professionals with an understanding of fusion without being experts, will prove useful for simulations, modelling and design studies to advance fusion research.

The challenge is looking for submissions that include the following parameters: radii, plasma current, magnetic field strength, material composition of device wall and divertor, plasma shape, elongation and triangularity.

Participants have until 31 January 2021 to submit their answers here.

Click to see the IAEA and FuseNet announcements.

New documentary on fusion energy: Engineering the Future
13 Jan 2021
A new fusion documentary follows the efforts underway at ITER, JET, and First Light Fusion to realize "the ultimate energy solution."

Produced by Bigger Bang Communications (UK) and narrated by actor Patrick Stewart (known for his distinct voice), the 60-minute film is part of a six-part series called Engineering the Future. "A global industrial revolution is underway, driven by passionate, dedicated individuals intent on shaping a new world. A cleaner world. A greener world. Together, they are pushing engineering to its limits to create extraordinary machines that can protect our planet for the future."

The episode on fusion can be viewed on Curiosity Stream and HBO Max (paywalls).

A detailed and realistic 360° MCNP model of ITER
11 Jan 2021
In a paper published this month in Nature Energy, a team from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED, Spain) offers the scientific community a "full and heterogeneous model of the ITER Tokamak" for comprehensive nuclear analyses.

"Nuclear analysis is a core discipline in support of the design, commissioning and operation of the machine. To date, it has been conducted with increasingly detailed partial models, which represented toroidal segments of the tokamak. However, the limitations of this methodology became evident as estimates of quantities relevant to design, safety and operation showed unquantifiable uncertainties, which is a risk. [...] Thanks to increasing high-performance computing capabilities and improvements in the memory management by the codes over the years, it is now feasible to take an important step forward. In this work, we present a 360° heterogeneous and detailed MCNP model of the ITER tokamak, which we call E-lite. It can be used to determine all the quantities relevant to the ITER's nuclear operations without the aforementioned uncertainties."

The main authors—Rafael Juarez, an associate professor at UNED, and Gabriel Pedroche, a PhD student in the same research team—worked closely with colleagues from ITER and the European Domestic Agency (Fusion for Energy). Key contributions came from Michael Loughlin, Eduard Polunovskiy and Yannick Le Tonqueze from the ITER Organization, and Raul Pampin and Marco Fabbri from Fusion for Energy.

Follow the link below to consult the article:

Juarez, R., Pedroche, G., Loughlin, M.J. et al. A full and heterogeneous model of the ITER tokamak for comprehensive nuclear analyses. Nat Energy (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-00753-x 

 See a related report by Fusion for Energy.

Spanish YouTuber passes 375K views with feature on ITER
08 Jan 2021
Javier Santaolalla is a Spanish engineer and doctor in particle physics who has worked at CIEMAT, CERN and the French National Centre for Space Studies. On YouTube you can look him up as a scientific popularizer with a number of well-followed channels that tackle physics, explaining concepts like black holes, the Higgs boson and the second law of thermodynamics in an entertaining and informative way.
 
In December, he released a 16-minute feature on ITER (ITER: Así será el mayor reactor nuclear del planeta) that has reached 375,000 views.
 
You can watch it (in Spanish) here.
'Star power' meets star power
07 Jan 2021
The Japanese ICT company NTT has made a short video in promotion of fusion and ITER with the famous Japanese baseball player Ichirō Suzuki, an American League All Star who played for the New York Yankees as well as the Seattle Mariners and the Miami Marlins in the course of his nearly 30-year career. In the short film Ichirō is introduced to fusion and ITER as promising paths forward to energy sustainability.
 
You can see the promotional film on YouTube here.
Fusion and the climate: webinar 13 January
06 Jan 2021
On Wednesday 13 January 2021, the Stellar Energy Foundation and Pegasus Fusion Strategies are co-hosting a webinar-style workshop titled "Energy, Environment, Innovation: Fusion's Promise for our Climate."

Join featured speakers Laban Coblentz, Head of Communication at ITER, and Dennis Whyte, Director of the MIT Plasma Science & Fusion Center and Hitachi American Professor of Engineering at MIT, for a thought-provoking discussion of the state of energy supply and demand today, the effort to mitigate atmospheric CO2, and the possible role of fusion energy.

Is fusion power a realistic green energy option for combating climate change? Should private sector fusion projects be given priority over large multinational projects such as ITER? Can we rely on renewables like wind and solar to avoid climate change?

The 90-minute webinar (11:30 a.m. — 1:00 p.m. US Eastern time) will be moderated by Chris Gadomski from BloombergNEF.

Update 18 January 2021: The recording of the webinar can be found at this link.

2020

Neighbours and traditions
07 Dec 2020
This month, the ITER community respected time-honoured Provencal traditions by installing a crèche and a Christmas tree in the lobby of ITER Headquarters. The new mayor of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, André Gomez, and deputy-mayor in charge of communication, Elise Placé, were by Director-General Bernard Bigot's side for the tree lighting on 1 December. (The tree was offered by the village of Saint-Paul.)

Fusion world | First plasma for China's HL-2M
07 Dec 2020
China has announced that the HL-2M tokamak produced its first plasma discharge on 4 December 2020.
 
HL-2M is a medium-sized copper-conductor tokamak located at the Southwestern Institute of Physics (SWIP) in Chengdu, China. It is a totally new machine, with some systems upgraded from the HL-2A tokamak that had been in operation since 2002. HL-2M is designed to have 3MA plasma current, and over 100 million degree Celsius ion temperature.
 
With a flexible divertor, a new set of toroidal field coils, and a shaped plasma with improved stability. HL-2M will contribute to establishing the scientific and technical basis for optimizing the tokamak approach to fusion energy and prepare important scaling information for ITER operation.
 
--Photo: China Atomic Energy Authority
Thailand's TINT to house a research tokamak
07 Dec 2020
The Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology has started the construction of the building that will house the country's first tokamak and ancillary systems.

The Thai Tokamak-1, or TT-1, will be developed from HT-6M—a device developed at the Chinese Institute of Plasma Physics (ASIPP) in the 1980s and donated to Thailand in 2018. It will be used to train a new generation of students in magnetic confinement fusion.

Thailand made its first steps into fusion research in 2015 when a series of conferences was organized in Bangkok by specialists from the French Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (IRFM). In December 2018, HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, visited ITER with TINT specialists, and a Cooperation Agreement was signed to promote cooperation and educational exchange between the two institutions.

Construction of the TINT Tokamak Workshop Building will be completed in 2022.

See this article from the Bangkok Post. 
Disruption mitigation | A new test centre to characterize icy pellets
30 Nov 2020
Researchers at the Centre for Energy Research, Hungary, will test key elements of the ITER disruption mitigation system in a dedicated support laboratory.

The technology group, led by Uron Kruezi, of the ITER Disruption Mitigation Task Force has awarded a multi-year contract to the Centre for Energy Research (EK), together with several Hungarian companies, for the development of a laboratory to test key components of ITER's disruption mitigation system (DMS). The DMS will use a technique called shattered pellet injection that creates small ice fragments by shattering a single large cryogenic pellet of hydrogen and neon. These fragments will then enter the plasma to protect the in-vessel components from the large heat fluxes generated during disruptions. One of the lab's first tasks will be to study the pellet fragmentation process, and to design a pellet shattering unit that produces those fragment sizes that are most effective in mitigating disruptions.

The studies carried out under this contract are part of a wider technology program that ITER carries out with its partners. This program addresses for example the optimization of the pellet formation process, the development of an optical pellet diagnostic to measure pellet velocity and integrity, as well as technology development for accelerating the pellet towards the plasma.

Click here to see the press release issued by the Centre for Energy Research on the contract award.

--Conceptual design of the test stand to study the pellet shattering process.

April 2021: Remote ITER Business Meeting
30 Nov 2020
The 2021 ITER Business Forum (IBF/21), originally planned in Marseille, France, from 6 to 8 April 2021, has been postponed to April 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
 
The ITER Organization will be organizing a smaller-scale remote event called the "Remote ITER Business Meeting" in April 2021.
 
During the two-day remote meeting on 7 and 8 April 2021, experts from the ITER Organization will be presenting specific information about contracts and procurement needs for the next years. They will be also available for one-to-one meetings with industry representatives.

The conference is free of charge but advance registration is required. Registrations will open in early January 2021 at this address.
Apply now: 100+ ITER internship opportunities
16 Nov 2020
The ITER Organization has kicked off its 2021 internship program with the publication of 116 offers on the ITER website (visit Jobs/Internships here: https://www.iter.org/jobs/internships).

These opportunities are geared toward undergraduate and postgraduate students, with a broad array of topics across scientific, technical and support departments. Control and data acquisition, systems engineering, business operations, construction and installation, safety and security, and science and technology are all represented in this year's batch of internship opportunities.

Positions are offered for up to six months; some categories are extendable to one year. Apply before 28 February 2021 through the online e-recruiting system. (Please note that internship opportunities are limited to nationals from countries participating in the ITER Project, i.e., China, the European Union plus Switzerland, India, Japan, Korea, Russian Federation and the United States.)

JT-60SA tokamak enters cooldown
16 Nov 2020
The JT-60SA fusion experiment in Naka, Japan, has entered its integrated commissioning phase—one of the last steps before first plasma. This collaborative project, financed and executed jointly by Europe and Japan under the Broader Approach agreement, will soon be running experiments to support the operation of ITER and to investigate how best to optimize the design and operation of fusion power plants built after ITER.

Preparing the newly upgraded device for its first plasma is step-by-step operation that began with the evacuation of all air from the vacuum vessel and surrounding cryostat, and was followed by the current phase of slowly cooling down the device's superconducting magnets to the temperature of 4 K (- 269 °C). This phase started on 10 October 2020 and is expected to last several weeks. (You can follow the progression of cooldown here.) 

Once the magnets reach the desired temperature, the team will heat up the vacuum vessel to 200 °C to rid it of moisture and any possible residual contaminants. Energizing the magnets come next, first each magnet separately before the full group together. The final step, before injecting hydrogen for making a plasma, is to test the electron cyclotron resonance heating.

Read more at Fusion for Energy.

ITER makes world's "most influential projects" list
16 Nov 2020
The ITER Project has been selected as one of the world's most influential projects by the Project Management Institute in its 2020 ratings, released in November.

The professional organization's Top 50 list singles out "compelling efforts across industries and around the world that have achieved significant milestones" during the year. "In a time of uncertainty and upheaval, bold projects are paving the way to a new future." Each effort is "a distinct masterclass in how to navigate change and deliver results."

The ITER Project is #34 overall and #3 in the Top 10 list for projects in the domain of energy, recognized for "boldly exploring next-gen nuclear energy."

Find out more here: https://www.pmi.org/most-influential-projects.

Available now: ITER Technical Reports
02 Nov 2020
The list of ITER Technical Reports available on the public website continues to grow.

These reports, freely downloadable, aim to make the results of scientific and technical activities carried out under the ITER Agreement widely available.

Typically, they are versions of internal reports that have been deemed of interest for the wider scientific and technical community, but that have not been submitted for conventional publication in scientific journals or books.

View the growing list here : https://www.iter.org/technical-reports

Fusion Energy Conference update (FEC 2020)
02 Nov 2020
Whether in person or virtual, the world's largest fusion conference will forge ahead: FEC 2020 will be maintained for 10-15 May 2021 with the now-finalized scientific program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), together with the Local Organizing Committee, is currently reviewing the evolving COVID-19 situation and its impact on the conference. 

A decision whether to maintain a physical conference or move to a virtual event will be taken in early 2021. You will be kept informed.

So be ready to join us at the 28th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2020) whatever its format, as the fusion show must go on. We look forward to seeing you there!

For more information about the conference and updates regarding the program, please visit the website.

Johannes Schwemmer renewed as Fusion for Energy Director
05 Oct 2020
The Governing Board of the European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy, announced on 29 September that it has extended the contract of the current Director, Johannes Schwemmer, through 31 December 2023. Mr. Schwemmer has led Fusion for Energy since 1 January 2016.

"This unanimous decision shows that Mr Schwemmer has the full support of the Governing Board to continue to lead Fusion for Energy," said Chair Beatrix Vierkorn-Rudolph. Massimo Garribba, Deputy Director-General of the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy and Euratom's representative to Fusion for Energy's Governing Board, "[...] looks forward to his continued dedication to this international flagship project."

Read the full news article on the Fusion for Energy website.

In memory of David Swain
05 Oct 2020
The international fusion community lost a major contributor when Dr. David Swain passed away last month. His contributions to the advancement of experimental and theoretical plasma physics and technology spanned more than half a century during which he produced over 150 scientific papers.

For much of his career, Swain's research focused on confining and heating high density plasmas, largely with high power radiowaves. He received his PhD in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969, after receiving a Bachelor of Science from North Carolina State University in 1963. He became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1985.

His professional career began in 1969 at Sandia Laboratories; in 1975, he joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a member of the ORMAK tokamak team. He played a leading role in radiofrequency development activities for TFTR at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Tore Supra in France, plus other ion cyclotron systems for devices around the world including NSTX and KSTAR. Swain was also an early and critical member of the international team that designed ITER's ion cyclotron heating system. He retired from ORNL in 2017, but continued to contribute as a consultant, helping US ITER and the ITER Organization.

In his professional and personal life, Swain possessed a generosity of spirit, good-natured friendliness, and a dry sense of humour that made it a pleasure to work and travel with him. His folksy sayings, rooted in his rural North Carolina upbringing, were legendary. The global ITER community will miss his character and his contributions.

-- US ITER and the ITER Organization

New IAEA interactive map identifies fusion devices across the world
28 Sep 2020
The fusion team at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has introduced a worldwide tracking and information system for fusion devices, located within the IAEA's Fusion Portal.

The Fusion Device Information System (FusDIS), developed and maintained by the IAEA, focuses on experimental fusion research devices worldwide. FusDIS contains information on fusion devices public or private that are currently in operation, under construction, closed or being planned. All information is collected by the IAEA and undergoes a process of review involving the International Fusion Research Council.

It currently lists 62 tokamaks, 12 stellarators/heliotrons, 7 laser fusion devices, and 31 innovative/alternate fusion concepts.

The IAEA fusion team is interested in feedback on FusDIS. Please send comments to: Fusion-Physics@iaea.org

Fusion history | TFTR designated "Nuclear Historic Landmark"
28 Sep 2020
From the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory:

The American Nuclear Society has bestowed its distinguished Nuclear Historic Landmark designation on the pioneering Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) that ran from 1982 to 1997 at the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).

The groundbreaking facility laid the foundation for future fusion power plants and set world records for fusion power (10.7 million watts) in 1994 and total fusion energy production (1,500 million joules) from 1993 to 1997.  The achievements marked a major step in fusion history.

The designation, which will be formally announced at the American Nuclear Society's November meeting, recognizes TFTR "for demonstrating significant fusion energy production and tritium technologies for future nuclear fusion power plants and the first detailed exploration of magnetically confined deuterium-tritium fusion plasmas."

Read the full statement by The American Nuclear Society.

Read the original article on the PPPL website.

Register now: European Fusion Teacher Day
21 Sep 2020
Secondary school teachers across Europe are invited to participate virtually in the 2020 European Fusion Teacher Day, hosted by FuseNet, the European Fusion Education Network.

Registration for the 2 October event closes on 27 September.

The European Fusion Teacher Day will premiere new education materials for the classroom, offer a behind-the-scenes look at international fusion experiments such as ITER, JET and GOLEM, and host a live connection with teachers throughout Europe. At the end of the event you will be able to tell your students all about nuclear fusion: from the cutting-edge research that is going on, to how to make fusion a career.

For the first part of the event, participants will join video calls in the language of their choice, hosted by fusion institutes in Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. An introductory lecture followed by a presentation of newly developed classroom materials will be the highlights of this part of the program.

Then, all participants will tune into a livestream (in English) with fusion students and scientists located on site at three tokamak facilities: ITER, JET and GOLEM.

For more information on how to participate, see FuseNet.

Chiller plant ready for testing
21 Sep 2020
On 17 September, the chiller plant in the Site Services Building was turned over to the ITER Science, Controls & Operation Department (SCOD) for commissioning.

This is the first of many handovers to come between the ITER construction and operation teams, and it signals that equipment installation is complete. Now, a commissioning team led by SCOD will start to energize the equipment, fill the pipes, and test the circuits and related control interfaces.

The chiller plant is one element of the chilled water system that is, in turn, part of the overall ITER cooling water system. The tokamak cooling water system, the component cooling water system, the chilled water system and the heat rejection system are together responsible for removing the enormous amounts of heat generated by the tokamak and its auxiliary systems.

Port stubs: Russian deliveries continue
11 Sep 2020
On August 28, two upper port extensions procured by the Russian Domestic Agency arrived at the South Korean port of Busan.

Each of the vacuum vessel's 44 openings will have custom-made "extensions" to create the junction to the surrounding cryostat. The first link in the two-part chain—the port stub extension—will be welded to the vacuum vessel sectors before they are shipped from their manufacturing locations; (the second, port extensions, will be added during assembly on site).

Responsible for the 18 upper ports, the Russian Domestic Agency has been delivering upper port stub extensions to vacuum vessel manufacturers in Korea and Europe since 2017. They are procured under the general contracting responsibility of JSC NIIEFA (part of Rosatom State Corporation), and manufactured by MAN Energy Solutions, Germany.

Upper port extensions #14 and #16 were delivered to Korea late August after a one-month sea voyage. The timely delivery of all port stub extensions is critical for the on-time fabrication of vacuum vessel sectors, and thus the overall ITER schedule.

 

Vladimir Sergeevich Voitsenya, 1935-2020
08 Sep 2020
The ITER community was saddened to learn that Vladimir Sergeevich Voitsenya, a Ukrainian physicist, researcher, and Fellow of the Ukrainian Physical Society, passed away in August 2020. 

Trained as a Doctor of Science in Physics and Mathematics, he spent much of his career at the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology, KhIPT, moving from laboratory head to leading research scientist, head of the plasma diagnostics laboratory, and finally head of the Stellarators Division. Dr Voitsenya's scientific interests included magnetic plasma confinement, plasma-surface interaction, and plasma-facing mirrors for the diagnostics in ITER.

"Vladimir was a key player in the mirror program for ITER diagnostics and indeed his work is the foundation of the current excellent progress in this area," commented Michael Walsh, Head of ITER Diagnostics. Colleagues at the International Tokamak Physics Activity (ITPA*) remember him for his enthusiasm, his visionary papers, his ideas—many of which are now implemented in ITER diagnostics—and his kind and friendly attitude. "For us he was a diagnostic pioneer, one of the founders and strongest proponents of the ITPA."

*The International Tokamak Physics Activity (ITPA) provides a framework for internationally coordinated fusion research activities.

Media interest in ITER explodes
17 Aug 2020
ITER's start-of-assembly celebration on 28 July 2020 generated unprecedented media interest in the project, as evidenced by 3,500 news stories in the printed press in 41 languages (101 countries). A small sampling can be found in Press Clippings (https://www.iter.org/pressclippings). For full information about the project see the ITER website at https://www.iter.org/.

A TV interview of Jung Kijung, head of Korean Domestic Agency
11 Aug 2020
In this 16-minute feature on the ITER Project aired by the Seoul-based English language channel Arirang TV on 5 August, the head of ITER Korea, Jung Kijung, explains how South Korea joined ITER in 2003, how Korean expertise has contributed to the science and engineering that underpins the mega-science project, what in-kind components South Korea has contributed to the project, and what milestones have to be realized before the advent of fusion electricity.

Watch the segment of News, In Depth here.

3D tour updated (June 2020)
29 Jul 2020
The 360° virtual tour of ITER construction has been updated with drone footage from late May 2020. Plunge 30 metres into the ITER Tokamak pit, relive the insertion of the cryostat base, and fly in and out of the ITER plant buildings to see what has changed since the last update in February 2020..

Accessible from the home page of the ITER website (yellow icon) or by clicking on the link below, the 2D tour requires no special equipment to enjoy. (If you do have 3D glasses, click on the yellow goggle symbol at the top of any screen.)

Click here to enter the latest 360° ITER virtual tour.

ITER assembly | All you need to know in one spot
29 Jul 2020
Timed to meet worldwide attention on the ITER Project at the launch of its machine assembly phase, a new section of the ITER website has just been released. The ITER assembly pages are the place to go for information, photos, videos, articles and links about the step-by-step process of building the world's largest tokamak.

And, thanks to the skill of ITER CAD technician Kevin Ballant, the pages open to a new video that shows you how the ITER Organization assembly teams will proceed—from installing the cryostat base and lower cryostat components at the bottom of the assembly arena, to the placement of the central column and radial beams of the in-pit assembly tool, the vacuum sector sub-assemblies, the magnets, upper cryostat components, and finally the cryostat lid.

Visit the new ITER assembly pages here.

Making headway on the vacuum vessel in Europe
20 Jul 2020
In a report published this month, the European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy, explains how progress was maintained on the fabrication of five ITER vacuum vessel sectors despite some factory shutdowns due to Covid-19.

"We had to analyze the impact of the pandemic on our production plants, figure out which tasks could be performed in line with the instructions issued by the Italian authorities, and adopt measures of health and safety in line with this new reality. Therefore, we re-arranged the planning of activities, prioritised some critical ones. We put forward a short-term plan to keep up the progress, while ensuring full compliance with protocols," explains Max Febvre, Fusion for Energy Manufacturing Project Manager for the vacuum vessel. As a result, the impact of the pandemic was not as disruptive as expected. 

See a full report plus recent photos here.

European Fusion Teacher Day 2020
20 Jul 2020
Secondary school teachers across Europe are invited to participate virtually in the 2020 European Fusion Teacher Day, hosted by FuseNet, the European Fusion Education Network.

Registration for the event on 2 October is free of charge and open now.

The European Fusion Teacher Day will premiere new education materials for the classroom, offer a behind-the-scenes look at international fusion experiments such as ITER, JET and GOLEM, and host a live connection with teachers throughout Europe. At the end of the event you will be able to tell your students all about nuclear fusion: from the cutting-edge research that is going on, to how to make fusion a career!

For the first part of the event, participants will join video calls in the language of their choice, hosted by fusion institutes in Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. An introductory lecture followed by a presentation of newly developed classroom materials will be the highlights of this part of the program.

Then, all participants will tune into a livestream (in English) with fusion students and scientists located on site at three tokamak facilities: ITER, JET and GOLEM.

For more information on how to participate, see FuseNet.

How can fusion change our future?
23 Jun 2020
Looking for a new way to explain fusion in your classrooms and boardrooms? Interested in a two-minute summary of what fusion is and how it can change our future?

A new animation from Fusion for Energy, the European Domestic Agency for ITER, uses a fresh visual approach to make fusion accessible to all. Subtitles are available in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

See the video here.

ITER needs 60 small diamond windows
22 Jun 2020
Synthetic diamond windows will play a double function in the ITER machine—allowing the microwaves of the electron cyclotron heating system to pass through to reach the plasma while providing an effective leak-proof vacuum barrier.

High-purity CVD (chemical vapour deposition) diamond windows offer unsurpassed hardness, broad band optical transparency, and extremely high thermal conductivity.

The European Domestic Agency, Fusion for Energy, is working with the German firm Diamond Materials for the production of 60 diamond disks (Ø 7 cm) for the electron cyclotron heating system.

See the full story here.

Reflected waves: a diagnostic for measuring plasma density
15 Jun 2020
A wealth of information about the behaviour and stability of the ITER plasma will be communicated by the return signals of the low-field side reflectometer (LFSR)—a diagnostic that shoots a frequency-modulated (FM) millimetre wave signal (a type of microwave) into the plasma and gathers information about the plasma edge in return.

The LFSR is the first device of its kind to measure the plasma density, and process and report the data to the central tokamak control system in real-time. This allows it to serve as an alert system, as abrupt changes in the steepness of the edge density profile, or gradient, can lead to instabilities known as edge localized modes (ELMs), which release large amounts of energy.

A final design review is planned this summer by the US ITER diagnostics team, which is based out of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. The device will be installed on ITER before its First Plasma.

See the original news on the US ITER website or this report from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

FEC 2020 postponed to May 2021
08 Jun 2020
The 28th edition of the IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2020) has been postponed.

Originally scheduled to take place from 12 to 17 October 2020 in Nice, France, the conference organizers have announced new dates: 10 to 15 May 2021. The venue for the event has not changed.

The IAEA Fusion Energy Conference is the world's largest conference on fusion energy. Sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and organized regularly since 1961, it attracted over 1,000 fusion scientists and engineers at its last edition, in 2018

The 28th edition of the IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2020) will be hosted jointly by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and the ITER Organization.

For information and important dates, visit FEC2020 or the dedicated page on the IAEA website.

Ignite private sector entry into the fusion market
22 May 2020
The sunrise of fusion startups has also reached Japan. A team from Kyoto University founded its fusion startup in October 2019. Kyoto Fusioneering Co. Ltd. assists private fusion developers through engineering solutions and business-to-business technical assistance to accelerate the practical realization of fusion energy.

Today, there are already many fusion startups around the world, mainly in North America and Europe. Fusion is no longer public-sector-only science; it is a business bringing excitement to the private sector as well. Taka Nagao, CEO of Kyoto Fusioneering, sees a real opportunity. "Even though 'fusion electricity' is quite far away, we're already in the phase of business opportunities." Fusion startups have been raising funds from venture capital funds to develop demo fusion reactors. Some of them look for cooperation with other startups to help their demo development, rather than doing everything by themselves. "So we see the manufacturing of fusion machine components as an already existing need, and it is becoming a fruitful market," he says.

His company focuses especially on critical in-vessel components that will be an important part of every fusion reactor—the blanket, which must be designed to breed tritium and efficiently remove energy for electricity generation, and the divertor, which extracts heat and ash produced by the reaction to minimize plasma contamination.

--Anri Kato

Andlinger Highlight Seminar Series
18 May 2020
On 14 May 2020, ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot participated virtually in a Highlight Seminar organized by the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment (Princeton University, USA).

The Andlinger Center's stated goal is to translate fundamental knowledge into practical solutions that enable sustainable energy solutions and the protection of the environment. 

In the seminar attended (virtually) by over 500 people, Bernard Bigot reviewed ITER status and fielded questions on upcoming milestones, the short- and longer-term perspectives of fusion energy, and how to get involved.

Listen to the one-hour program on the Princeton University website here.

Documentary on fusion from China's CGTN
18 May 2020
The Chinese television network CGTN has released an episode of its series "Decoding the Future" on hydrogen fusion. What is fusion? How does a tokamak work? What role for ITER? How are researchers in China contributing? Among the (virtual) panelists during the 30-minute episode in English is theortical physicist Alain Bécoulet, head of the ITER Engineering Domain.

Watch the episode on YouTube here.

Preliminary Design Review of the COMPASS-U tokamak
06 Apr 2020
COMPASS, a small tokamak located at the Institute of Plasma Physics (Czech Academy of Sciences) in Prague, will soon become COMPASS-U—a high magnetic field device with an enlarged operational space and improved performance—to serve the research programs supporting ITER and the next-phase device DEMO.

A preliminary design review of the new COMPASS-U tokamak was held remotely from 31 March to 3 April with over 60 international and domestic scientists in attendance.

See the news here.

Virtual reality tour updated
30 Mar 2020
The 360° virtual tour of ITER construction has been updated with drone footage from late February 2020. Fly in, out and over the principal buildings of the ITER worksite by clicking on the teardrop-shaped markers.

Accessible from the home page of the ITER website (yellow icon) or by clicking on the link below, the 2D tour requires no special equipment to enjoy. (If you do have 3D glasses, click on the yellow goggle symbol at the top of any screen.)

Click here to enter the latest 360° ITER virtual tour.

Upgrade at Wendelstein 7-X
23 Mar 2020
The Wendelstein 7-X stellarator facility at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald, Germany, is preparing for higher heating power and longer plasma pulses.

After a successful campaign that ended in late 2018—during which operators were able to achieve discharge times of up to 100 seconds (2 MW of input heating power) or 30 seconds at 6 MW—the Wendelstein 7-X team is now preparing to install actively water-cooled components inside the vacuum vessel that will allow the next round of experiments to generate plasma pulses of up to 30 minutes.

The previous cladding made of carbon tiles has now been removed, and the vessel is ready for the installation of the new water-cooled protective elements. Chief among them is the new divertor, a highly technical component made of plasma-facing front tiles mounted on water-cooled back plates—assemblies made of nearly 500,000 parts, which were the object of more than 15 years of development, fabrication and testing.

Commissioning of the upgraded facility is expected to begin early next year.

Read the full article on the IPP Greifswald website.

--Cooling elements on the back side of a divertor plate. Photo: IPP, Michael Herdlein

Fusion podcast: Plans for STEP, the newest tokamak on the block
09 Mar 2020
The latest 30-minute episode  of the fusion podcast A Glass of Seawater discusses plans for a new compact fusion reactor at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy.

In October 2019, the UK government announced a £220 million funding package for the concept design phase of STEP—the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production. Building on the operation of the new MAST Upgrade spherical tokamak experiment and on ITER, the program aims to design and build a commercially viable fusion power station by 2040.

Ian Chapman, CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, joins doctoral researchers from the Fusion CDT* program to discuss the hopes and ambitions for STEP. 

* Five UK universities—Durham, Liverpool, Manchester, Oxford, and York—have joined within FUSION CDT to offer doctoral training in fusion-relevant disciplines such as plasma physics, material science, nuclear physics, technology, laser physics, and instrumentation.

Listen to A Glass of Seawater's "STEPisode" episode here.
Learn more about Fusion CDT here.
Young talent meets leading researchers in Thailand
24 Feb 2020
ITER science and technology was one of the topics that more than 80 students from across southeast Asia explored at the sixth ASEAN School on Plasma and Nuclear Fusion and Sokendai Winter School in Thailand in late January.

The school—which is organized by Sokendai University, the Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (TINT), and Walailak University with the support the IAEA and ITER—is part of Thailand's initiative to intensify its fusion research program and aims at promoting interaction between young talent in southeast Asian countries and leading researchers from around the world.

"The ITER Director-General gives his full support to the school by sharing the latest developments on ITER as well as the background and rationale of its science and advanced technology," said Jean Jacquinot, Senior Adviser to the Director-General of the ITER Organization, and one of the lecturers at the school.

Read the full story on the IAEA website. 

Half time at ITER
24 Feb 2020
In a rare moment off the playing field, 100 of France's top under 17 rugby players visited the ITER site last week, taking advantage of a selection camp organized locally to learn more about fusion and the ITER Project. 

The ITER visits team tailors its guided tours to groups of all sizes—from individuals to buses of 50 people. Since work began on the construction platform in 2007, 158,000 members of the public have passed through the gate, including 16,000 in 2019. Among the visitors last year were 7,000 French schoolchildren.

See more on ITER visits here.

Europe | Precise measuring tool developed for ITER
17 Feb 2020
When there is no off-the-shelf solution, develop your own!

This was the mind-set of the European contractor that—because no available solution was accurate enough—invented a specialized metrology tool that is capable of measuring the diameter of cylindrical components to within an accuracy of 0.004 mm.

Working closely with the European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy, the Spanish firm Tekniker has developed a tool that will be used to inspect the diameter of the "multi-link" connectors between the ITER divertor and its plasma-facing components and assess whether they have been manufactured to within the required 20 microns of tolerance.

Read the full story here.

Monaco-ITER postdoctoral positions | Apply by 1 March
17 Feb 2020
If your PhD was awarded after 1 January 2017—or you are about to obtain one—you are eligible to apply for a Monaco-ITER Postdoctoral Fellowship.

The Fellowship Program is recruiting now for two-year terms beginning autumn 2020.

Since 2008, 30 young scientists and engineers have been able to participate directly in ITER, working on cutting-edge issues in science and technology with some of the leading scientists and engineers in each domain. The principal aim of the Research Fellowships, which are funded by the Principality of Monaco under a Partnership Agreement that was renewed in early 2018, is the development of excellence in research in fusion science and technology within the ITER framework.

The deadline for application is 1 March 2020. All information can be obtained here.

Exploring the Sun's uncharted regions
10 Feb 2020
Led by the European Space Agency (ESA) with strong NASA participation, the Solar Orbiter mission, which lifted off from Cape Canaveral on 10 February, will provide the first views of the Sun's uncharted polar regions, giving unprecedented insight into the workings of our familiar star.

Solar Orbiter will also investigate how intense radiation and energetic particles being blasted out from the Sun and carried by the solar wind impact our home planet, to better understand and predict periods of stormy "space weather."

Find out more at ESA or NASA.

Fusion's hot moment
10 Feb 2020
In a context of new momentum in fusion research—as the ITER Organization begins assembling its machine, a number of upgraded tokamaks return to operation, and private investors fund fusion startups—what does the near future hold for the development of fusion energy?

This was the question the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment at Princeton University asked Steve Cowley (left), director of the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University professor of astrophysical sciences, and Egemen Kolemen (right), a PPPL physicist and assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the Andlinger Center, during a Highlight Seminar event in January.

You can read their replies here.

Princeton University's Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment is a multidisciplinary research and education centre, whose mission is to the develop technologies and solutions of the future.

Calling for nominations: 2020 Fusion Technology Award
10 Feb 2020
During the next Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE April 2021), Fusion Technology Awards will be presented for the years 2020 and 2021 to individuals who have made outstanding and widely recognized contributions to research and development in the field of fusion technology, or for technical contributions that have had a major impact in fusion technology and/or leadership and service within the community.

The Awards each consist of a USD 3,000 cash prize and a plaque. Any person, regardless of nationality or Society affiliation, is eligible for the award, with the exception that no current member of the IEEE/NPSS Standing Committee on Fusion Technology may be nominated. The nomination package should be sent to the Fusion Technology Committee Awards Chair, Carl Pawley (drcpawley@ieee.org), and it should consist of a nomination letter describing the technical and/or leadership contributions on which the nomination is recommended and a resume of the candidate.

The nomination period for the 2020 Fusion Technology Award is 4 February to 10 March 2020.

For more detailed information on eligibility, basis for judging, nomination process and a list of past Award recipients, please visit the IEEE-NPSS website and go to the "Fusion Technology Awards" section.

ITER "godfather" turns 85
03 Feb 2020
Academician Evgeny Velikhov, who was Mikhail Gorbachev's scientific adviser in the mid-1980s, is considered as the "godfather" of the ITER Project. The veteran fusion physicist who celebrated his 85th birthday on 2 February in Moscow, was instrumental in gathering support for what was to become ITER in both the Soviet Union and within the Reagan administration, where he had several high-level contacts.

At the head of the nation's fusion program since 1973 when he succeeded Lev Artsimovitch, President of the Kurchatov Institute from 1992 to 2015 (and current Honorary President), and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Velikhov has received numerous national and international distinctions for his work. A key driving force for international collaboration on fusion, he served as ITER Council Chair during the technical design phase for ITER and again at the start of ITER construction from 2011-2012.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated the outstanding scientist on his birthday and noted his fruitful personal contribution to the development of the national Academy of Sciences and the Kurchatov Institute.

Photo: Anatoly Krasilnikov and Vladimir Vlasenkov (Head and Deputy Head of the Russian Domestic Agency for ITER) presenting him with 3D glasses loaded with the most recent video images from the ITER worksite.

ITER manga 3.0
03 Feb 2020
In the third installment of ITER Japan's manga series on the project, our hero Taiyô Tenno visits the factory where the first ITER toroidal field coil was completed and learns about the multiple challenges (including tooling, welding, testing, level of precision, and materials) that had to be overcome.

A timely addition to the series, which can be downloaded from the ITER Japan website here or directly from the ITER Publications gallery (comics).

World's most powerful supercomputer to continue processing for fusion
20 Jan 2020
Researchers led by CS Chang of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have been awarded major supercomputer time to address key issues for ITER. The award, from the DOE's INCITE* program, renews the third and final year of the team's supercomputer allocation for the current round.

The third-year allotment consists of 1.5 million node hours on the Theta supercomputer at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, and 0.97 million node hours on Summit, the world's most powerful supercomputer, at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility. Since every computer node has thousands of processing cores, or data processors, a single node hour equals thousands of core hours.

The INCITE announcement of the renewal called the studies "time-urgent for the successful planning of ITER operation" and ones that require "an intensive, concentrated computing effort using extreme-scale supercomputers."

The multi-year project studies three high-priority ITER edge-plasma challenges: gauging the heat-load that will strike the material surrounding the plasma in ITER; understanding the physics behind the transition from low-to-high ITER plasmas; and, studying turbulence at the edge of ITER plasmas that could damage the interior of the fusion facility.

Read the full article at PPPL.

*Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE)

2019

Season's Greetings
16 Dec 2019
The offices of the ITER Organization will be closed from 23 December through 3 January included, although work will be proceeding on the construction site.

The year 2020 promises to be a special one for the ITER Project, as some of ITER's largest components arrive on site and the carefully orchestrated assembly phase for the ITER machine and plant officially kicks off.

Newsline will continue to cover every aspect of ITER and the fusion world, from progress on the construction site in southern France and in component manufacturing in factories and laboratories on three continents ... to meetings, conferences and scientific breakthroughs throughout the world.

See you in January.

We shot a similar end-of-year photo in 2017: click here to compare the two images.

View the ITER Organization's e-card here.

ITER public service announcement seen all over the world
09 Dec 2019
From Wednesday 4 December 2019 through 28 January 2020 a public service announcement on ITER will be a regular feature on the Euronews network, which has a global reach of 430 million households (including 170 million European households) in 166 countries.

The goal is to raise awareness of the ITER Project, the promise of fusion, and Europe's leadership as the host Member—working together with China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, and the USA—to bring to reality the most complex science experiment ever attempted.

The 20-second promotional spot has been filmed in five languages (English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian). It is scheduled to air two- to three-times daily, or approximately 70 times in December and another 70 in January.

You can watch the public service announcementson the ITER YouTube page in English, French, German, Spanish or Italian.

360° virtual tour updated
04 Dec 2019
The 360° virtual tour of ITER construction has been updated with drone footage from October 2019. Fly in, out and over the principal buildings of the ITER worksite by clicking on the coloured teardrop-shaped markers: red to follow a drone inside the buildings, yellow for a tour at ground level, or blue if you prefer to stay at bird's eye view.

Accessible from the home page of the ITER website (yellow icon) or by clicking on the link below, the 2D tour requires no special equipment to enjoy. (If you do have 3D glasses, click on the yellow goggle symbol at the bottom left of your screen.) Make sure you don't miss out on the "Tokamak 3d/Pit" button (blue site map, blue teardrop). It's a spectacular virtual visit of the completed plasma chamber.

Click here to enter the latest 360° ITER virtual tour.

The challenge and promise of burning plasmas
04 Dec 2019
In the December 2019 issue of Physics Today (Volume 72, Issue 12), two physicists explore the ways in which ITER will be a major step in "bridging the gap between current understanding and the knowledge needed to design and operate fusion power plants as safe, sustainable energy sources."

Richard J. Hawryluk* (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory's associate director for fusion) and Hartmut Zohm (director at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Garching) enumerate the open questions that are expected to be answered or clarified during ITER experimentation—heat and particle transport in the plasma core, stability of the edge region, plasma-boundary interactions, and alpha particle heating. "Experiments [at ITER] will be a unique opportunity to study burning plasmas, develop the tools needed to better understand them, and validate outstanding predictions. The experiments will provide seminal answers to questions that are central to the prospects for fusion."

Significant fusion power has only ever been achieved in two devices—and only for a little less than one second: up to 10 MW in the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (US), and up to 16 MW in the Joint European Torus (UK).

ITER—with the capability to produce 500 MW of power for more than 300 seconds—will enable "the first in-depth study of burning plasmas in a magnetic confinement configuration."

Read the full article here: "The challenge and promise of studying burning plasmas," Physics Today 72, 12, 34 (2019); doi: 10.1063/PT.3.4363. 

*Richard Hawryluk was also the ITER Deputy Director-General for Administration from 2011 to 2013.

"Fusioneers" write about fusion
02 Dec 2019
Fusion science and technology are complex matters that are difficult to explain to non-specialists. In its fall edition, Fusion in Europe (published by the EUROfusion network) asked a dozen "fusioneers" to write about the challenges they face in their daily practice. Whether hard-core scientists working in European laboratories and institutions, teachers or PhD students, they all volunteer their time to "entertain, enthral and educate" the general public.

"How do we teach ten-year-old students a complex topic like fusion?" asks Patricia Raposo-Weinberger, who teaches at Graz International Bilingual School in Graz, Austria. "For me, the best approaches are experiment and storytelling," she writes. "Never underestimate the power of a good, simple and enthusiastic story and its effect on students' interest in physics."

Jack Davies Hare, who currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics in Garching, Germany, summarizes the challenges of "surviving the maelstrom inside ITER" in a striking manner. He too begins with a question: "How do you build something that can survive for twenty years in the harshest conditions ever created on Earth, with no chance of replacement or repair, and with no test facility to replicate this environment?"

Like Patricia and Jack, the contributors to this "fusion writers edition" of Fusion in Europe share a common passion to communicate not only their enthusiasm but also their awe at what they uncover when exploring the bewildering world of fusion.

The "fusion writers edition" of Fusion in Europe can be downloaded here.

SOFT innovation prize: seeking applications
20 Nov 2019
Applications have opened for the 2020 SOFT Innovation Prize.

Building on the success of the SOFT Innovation Prize in 2014, 2016 and 2018, the European Commission has launched the contest's fourth edition under Euratom's 2019-20 Work Programme 2019-20. The prize seeks to highlight and reward excellence in research and technology innovation in the domain of fusion.

The contest is open to fusion researchers or research teams from all ITER partner countries, from any third party country that has a bilateral fusion cooperation agreement with Euratom, and to industrial participants in the ITER Project. Prizes will be awarded at the 31st Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT2020) in Dubrovnik, Croatia, held from 20 to 25 September 2020.

The application period runs from 19 November 2019 to 5 March 2020. For more information, visit SOFT2020.

JET tokamak: record heating power achieved
18 Nov 2019
In November, record neutral beam power of 30.8 MW were injected into a plasma on the JET tokamak at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE).

The new record was achieved during tests preparing the plasma scenarios required for JET's deuterium-tritium experiments in 2020, which aim to achieve high fusion power for a stable five seconds. Increased heating powers are crucial to achieving this target.

Beams of neutral particles (known as neutral beam injection) are one of the main plasma heating schemes on fusion machines such as JET and ITER. As well as supplying most of the heating power, the injection of energetic particles also provides useful diagnostic data for physicists.

CCFE's engineering team, which operates JET on behalf of European scientists under the EUROfusion consortium, has upgraded the neutral beam system from its previous capacity of 23 MW to a potential maximum of 34 MW. The extra power will support researchers using JET to simulate plasmas for the ITER Tokamak.

Read the full article on the CCFE website here.

Bloomberg on ITER
05 Nov 2019
"The world's great powers can't agree on small steps to tackle climate change, but they're cooperating on a huge leap of faith in Provence." So begins a recent article in Bloomberg on the ITER fusion project. Describing ITER both as one of the world's biggest scientific puzzles as well as a trade puzzle, author Jonathan Tirone explains how a 35-country network is sharing intellectual property, collaborating to bypass difficulties, and ultimately—if ITER succeeds—providing a template for world powers to develop fusion reactors or their own.

Read the article here. (Photographs by Alastair Philip Wiper)

An event that will change your ideas about factories!
23 Oct 2019
Next month, ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot will be presiding over a major public event in Marseille: L'Usine Extraordinaire (Extraordinary Factories). The three-day exhibition, organized from 14 to 16 November 2019, brings together more than 50 industrial actors and aims to change the public's perception of "big industry" by highlighting technological innovation, excellence, discovery, and ... the possibility of exciting careers.

More information (in French) at https://www.usineextraordinaire.com/

In a small corner of Haute-Provence
14 Oct 2019
In a few decades, when dozen of fusion plants operate throughout the world and the first signs of alien life are detected in a faraway system, one will realize that it all started here, in a small corner of southern France, amidst the rolling hills of Haute-Provence.

The ITER site and the Observatoire de Haute-Provence are only 45 kilometres distant.

In 1995, two Swiss astronomers, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, coupled a highly sophisticated spectroscope to the Observatory's old 1.93-metre telescope (it was installed in 1958!) and discovered the first exoplanet—a "hot Jupiter" body orbiting the sun-like star 51 Pegasi, 42 light years distant from the Earth.

Last week, both Mayor and Queloz (along with astrophysicist James Peebles) were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for "forever changing our conceptions of the world."

By the time the first ITER buildings were coming out of the ground, close to 1,000 exoplanets had been detected. As of today, their number exceeds 4,500. Some of these worlds, made of solid rock like Earth, are orbiting the "habitable zone" of their star, where temperature allows water to be liquid and where life, whatever its form, is a possibility.

At an interval of a few years, on the ITER site and at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence, the seeds were sown for two momentous, game-changing pursuits: the harnessing of fusion energy and the quest for life outside our solar system.

"Miniature ITER" to run tritium experiments next year
23 Sep 2019
In order to generate large amounts of fusion power, there needs to be a combination of two heavy hydrogen nuclei such as deuterium and tritium. But because of the radioactive nature of tritium—and also its scarcity—most experimental plasmas consist of deuterium only.

Although scientists are able to scale up the predicted performance of deuterium-tritium (DT) plasmas, there is nothing like using the real DT mix itself.

Next year, the European tokamak JET will be re-introducing tritium into its vacuum vessel for the first time since 1997.

The importance of its DT experimental campaign cannot be overstated for ITER. Until ITER starts operation with tritium in 2035, JET tritium and deuterium-tritium experiments will offer fusion scientists the opportunity to investigate physics relevant to high-fusion-power DT plasmas.

Read more about the planned campaign on the website of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy.

On "Roundtable": Is nuclear fusion a source of limitless energy?
23 Sep 2019
Roundtable, from TRT World, describes itself as a discussion program with an edge. Broadcast out of London, it's about "bringing people to the table, listening to every opinion, and analyzing every point of view." In September 2019, host David Foster invited an illustrious panel to discuss the potential of hydrogen fusion: ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot; Steven Cowley, director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and former CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority; Mark Wenman, Imperial College London; and Colin Walters, current director of the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

Click here to watch the 25-minute program.

Hungarian YouTuber passes 190K views with feature on ITER
18 Sep 2019
Magyarósi Csaba, a popular Hungarian video blogger, has created a fast-paced and jaunty feature on ITER.

Travelling between experts at the Wigner Research Centre for Physics in Budapest and Hungarian staff at ITER, he introduces his followers to the principles of fusion before diving into ITER, literally, as his camera follows him in and out of buildings under construction, stairwells, offices, eateries, and even the equipment room for worksite visitors. 

His program, posted to YouTube on 13 September, has passed 190K views in the first two months.

Watch the 33-minute video (in Hungarian, with English subtitles) here.

What opportunities at ITER for US companies?
17 Sep 2019
In September, the US House Science Committee invited the ITER Organization to hold a mini "ITER Business Forum" in its chambers in Washington D.C. to inform US companies about upcoming business opportunities at ITER. Approximately 90 businesses attended the event, which was opened by ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot. The next round of planned tender offers was described, and Skype links were made available for direct question and answer sessions with managers and department heads on site at ITER.

See this page on the ITER website for more on current and forthcoming tender offers. 

ITER at the World Energy Congress
17 Sep 2019
The World Energy Congress takes place every three years to facilitate discussion on critical developments in the energy sector between ministers, CEOs, policy makers, scientists, and industry representatives from 150 countries. At the 24th edition, organized in Abu Dhabi from 9-12 September 2019, ITER was present as an exhibitor and as part of a panel session on how breakthrough technologies will drive the energy transition.
 
More information here.
Rosatom and Euratom meet on controlled nuclear fusion
10 Sep 2019
From 26 to 27 August, representatives of Euratom and Rosatom met in Russia to discuss collaboration in the field of controlled nuclear fusion.

Representatives of the Kurchatov Institute, Rosatom, and ITER Russia hosted colleagues from EUROfusion, the Karlsruhe University of Technology (KIT) and the Belgian nuclear research centre SCK•CEN to discuss the possibility of joint tokamak experiments and collaboration in the areas of diagnostics, plasma-wall interaction, fusion neutron sources, and materials.

Collaboration and cooperation between the two institutions is made possible by the "Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) in the field of controlled thermonuclear fusion" that was signed in 2001. Its stated purpose is "to "maintain and intensify cooperation in the areas of nuclear fusion energy on the basis of equality and mutual benefit in order to develop, particularly in the framework of activities connected with ITER project implementation, the scientific understanding and technological capability underlying a fusion power system.

At the Kurchatov Institute, visits were organized to the T-10 tokamak, as well as to T-15MD—an upgrade of the T-15 machine that is scheduled for completion next year.

Modi praises ITER at UNESCO
24 Aug 2019
In August, while on official visit to France at the invitation of President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India shared his vision of cooperation in the field of energy on several occasions. At the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, he took pride in his country's participation in "the only fusion project under construction in the world." ''When fusion technology becomes available [...]," he said to expatriates gathered for the occasion, "this achievement will bear the mark of your contribution."

The full speech in Hindi is available on YouTube.

In Memoriam: Romano Toschi, a pioneer of the EU fusion energy program
06 Aug 2019
We regret to announce the passing, in August, of lifelong fusion advocate Romano Toschi.

Romano Toschi was a leading figure in the development the Italian magnetic confinement fusion program and played an important role in bringing the EU at the forefront of fusion research. He was known for his strong leadership and advocacy in furthering fusion and was a prime mover in the technical and political discussions leading to the establishment of ITER.

Below is an article describing his many contributions. EUROfusion has also published a tribute here.

Read the article about Romano Toschi

Exploring the crossovers between fusion and space
01 Aug 2019
"There's quite a significant crossover in the technologies between fusion and space. Both sectors have the need for components to be able to withstand high temperature, corrosion and be radiation-resistant. Equally, there is the requirement to use remote handling and advanced robotics in hazardous environments."

Heather Lewtas is the Programme Manager for Joining and Advanced Manufacturing at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE). At this year's Made for Space conference in the UK, she gave a talk on "Pushing the limits of component performance in nuclear fusion and space."

"I wanted to focus on the technology people working in fusion have really mastered, and how this can be transported to the space industry. Equally, what are the problems we have that the space industry could help us solve?"

Read more on the CCFE website.

ITER and science journalism
08 Jul 2019
What happens when hundreds of science journalists from more than 50 countries get together? A lot of questions get asked ...

Earlier this month, the 11th World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ2019) took place in Lausanne, Switzerland, with the stated ambition of "strengthening the professional, ethical and technical skills of science journalists by increasing their knowledge of recent developments in science and improving their understanding of the forces that shape our world."

ITER was there.

As one of the world's most ambitious—and complex—scientific projects, ITER has the responsibility to nurture close and open relationships with journalists around the world who may be interested in finding out more. Journalists communicate with the audiences that need to understand fusion—how it works, what are the advantages of this form of energy, and how it could become an integral part of their lives and those of future generations.

During the weeklong event, the ITER stand—with a cinematic booth showing drone footage of the worksite—was a first point of contact for journalists. ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot was also interviewed live by Science magazine's European news editor Eric Hand. Finally, a group of 25 journalists elected to take the train to ITER on the last day of the conference, where they were given an in-depth tour of construction.

​ITER's doors have always been open to the media. Our presence at the WCSJ2019 was a way to reaffirm this commitment to transparency.

Video: All the stages of composite ring fabrication
01 Jul 2019
The table turns slowly as strips of composite material are wound into a perfect ring. One hundred sixty-four turns later, the 3.4-tonne component, with an internal diameter of 5 metres, is ready for bonding, compression, curing, dry machining, inspection and testing.

These are ITER's pre-compression rings, a set of nine composite rings that will support the toroidal field magnet superstructure in the face of huge electromagnetic forces during operation. Encircling the tips of the coil structures at top and bottom, two sets of three rings will "push back" with a centripetal force of thousands of tonnes, suppressing any coil deflection and greatly reducing cyclic fatigue stresses.

The European Domestic Agency is working with principal contractor CNIM (Toulon, France) for the procurement of nine pre-compression rings (six, plus three spares). The raw material—pultrude laminate—is being procured by the European agency from the Finnish company Exel, while the equipment for last-phase testing was built under an ITER Organization contract awarded to Douce Hydro (France) in collaboration with CNIM. 

Production techniques and processes were validated during lengthy prototyping and qualification phases, and series production is underway now.

Visit the European Domestic Agency website to see a video of the production process.  

Japan-France five-year cooperation plan includes ITER
01 Jul 2019
In advance of the June G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and French President Emmanuel Macron held bilateral talks that resulted in the release of a five-year cooperation plan. Notably, ITER was one of the items on the agenda.

The plan provides a roadmap for partnership in the fields of maritime security, infrastructure development, global trade, space, cyberspace, cultural and scientific exchange, and the environment.

In Chapter IV (page 5-6), the two countries pledge to reinforce economic partnership with a particular emphasis on innovation—including ways of transitioning to energy systems that are low-carbon or carbon-neutral, affordable and stable. ITER makes that list, as well as the European-Japanese activities of the Broader Approach (advanced fusion energy research taking place in Japan).

Download the roadmap in Japanese or French

High-temp superconductor achieves record 45.5 Tesla
17 Jun 2019
Superconductivity is a miracle of physics: when cooled down to temperatures close to absolute zero, certain alloys, or compounds, cease to oppose resistance to the passage of electricity. In electromagnets made of superconducting coils like ITER's, electrical consumption drops to zero and, as an added advantage, no heat is generated inside the magnets.

Magnet cooling, however, requires a vast quantity of energy. Cooling fluids must be circulated through the entire length of the superconducting coils which, at ITER, means maintaining a forced flow of 25 tonnes of liquid helium at 4 K (minus 269 °C) throughout approximately 180 kilometres (and 10,000 tonnes) of conductor.

For many years, research worldwide has struggled to develop materials that would transition to the superconducting state at less frigid temperatures—so-called "high-temperature" superconductors.

Used in electromagnets, these "high-temperature" superconductors would allow the production of more powerful magnetic fields, passing the present limitation of low-temperature conductors (At its maximum in the centre of the ITER central solenoid, the magnetic field has an intensity of 13 Tesla.)

The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida, recently announced an important breakthrough in the quest for "high-temperature" superconductors: the manufacturing and testing of a half-pint "little big coil" that operated inside the bore of large outer copper coil in a background field of approximately 30 T, itself generating an additional 14.4 T, thus generating a combined record magnetic field of 45.5 Tesla in its (small) bore. This experiment demonstrated the capability of high temperature superconductors to operate in very high magnetic fields under large stresses. This could open the way to a new generation of magnets for biomedical research and fusion reactors.

 More information on the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory website and in this month's issue of Nature.

Register for the 10th "Festival de Théorie" in Aix-en-Provence
14 Jun 2019
Every two years, the Festival de Théorie aims to promote interactions between PhD students, postdocs and young scientists in fusion plasma physics and related fields including astrophysics, fluid mechanics and geophysics.

Many of the principles governing the turbulence and magneto-hydrodynamic phenomena observed in fusion plasmas are similar to those found in naturally occurring astrophysical plasmas in the Sun. Fluid mechanics and planetary atmospheric physics also share common threads, reporting observations that often reflect the experimental measurements taken in tokamaks. This is where the Festival de Théorie comes in, fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration and providing an invaluable forum for tackling some of the key issues posed by ITER.

The theme selected this year is: Phase Dynamics. The 2019 program is organized around four weeks of study and research in collaboration with a core group of prominent scientists. Participants begin with two weeks of seminars and lectures, followed by research projects in weeks 3 and 4 on topics spanning plasma physics, fluid dynamics, astrophysics, and applied mathematics.

The 10th edition of the Festival de Théorie will take place in Aix-en-Provence, France, from 1 to 26 July 2019. Registration is open now.

INFUSE: new US program aims to accelerate fusion research
07 Jun 2019
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced the launch of INFUSE, a program created to encourage partnerships in fusion research between industry and DOE national laboratories.

The Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) will select a number of projects for awards between $50,000 and $200,000 each, with a 20 percent project cost share for industry partners. Of particular focus will be "enabling technologies" that could contribute to accelerating the development of fusion energy such as new and improved superconducting magnets, materials science, diagnostics, modelling and simulation, and experimental capabilities.

DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) will manage the new program with the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). ORNL's Dennis Youchison, a fusion engineer with extensive experience in plasma-facing components, will serve as director, and PPPL's Ahmed Diallo, a physicist with expertise in laser diagnostics, will serve as deputy director.

"I am excited about the potential of INFUSE and believe this step will instill a new vitality to the entire fusion community," says Youchison in the DOE press release. "With growing interest in developing cost-effective sources of fusion energy, INFUSE will help focus current research. Multiple private companies in the United States are pursuing fusion energy systems, and we want to contribute scientific solutions that help make fusion a reality."

The first call for proposals has been issued (deadline 30 June).

See the 4 June press release and the INFUSE website.

The Economist: podcast on fusion
06 Jun 2019
Fusion is the star of a recent Babbage podcast from The Economist, which aired on 5 June 2019. In "Fusing the future—a power struggle," science correspondent Alok Jha investigates the technology "that could solve all of the world's energy problems in a stroke."

Moving from the ITER Project—the "world's make or break fusion experiment"—to private startups, he investigates how close we are to the long-promised dream of nuclear fusion. Featuring interviews with Bernard Bigot, Director-General of the ITER Organization; Stephen Dean, Fusion Power Associates (US); Melanie Windridge, plasma physicist and author; Nicholas Hawker, CEO of First Light Fusion (UK); and David King, Executive Vice Chairman of Tokamak Energy (UK).

Listen here (runtime: 20 minutes).

First crane hall columns
27 May 2019
High above the concrete fortress that will house the ITER Tokamak, a steel lattice of pillars and beams will soon rise to complete the structure—both providing a roof (once covered over with cladding) and providing sheltered manoeuvring room for the heavy assembly cranes that will be travelling back and forth from the Assembly Hall carrying components.

Twenty steel pillars (ten on either side) will support the roof structure as well as resist the tremendous forces exerted by the movement of the bridge cranes.

The lower segments of the pillars (see photo) will be directly anchored in the concrete of the Tokamak Building, either on concrete columns or on weight-bearing "brackets" called corbels. The rest of the roof structure will be assembled in five modules on the ground and lifted into place by crane.

The roof of the Tokamak Building will weigh approximately 2,000 tonnes.

Read the full story on the Fusion for Energy website.

Reversing the plasma shape?
20 May 2019
Researchers from the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, PSFC, and the University of Texas at Austin have had promising results in terms of plasma stability in experiments with "negative triangularity" on the DIII-D tokamak; that is, with reversing the conventional shape of the plasma in the tokamak chamber.

In results published recently in Physical Review Letters and Physics of Plasmas, researchers Alessandro Marinoni (MIT) and Max Austin (UT Austin) discovered evidence that reversing the conventional shape of the plasma in the tokamak chamber can create a more stable environment for fusion to occur, even under high pressure.

Marinoni and colleagues are planning future experiments to further demonstrate the potential of this approach in an even more fusion-power relevant magnetic topology, based on a "diverted" tokamak concept.

Read more on the subject on the PFSC website.

Assembling the second neutral beam testbed
20 May 2019
At ITER's Neutral Beam Test Facility, one testbed has been launched and another is in the procurement/assembly phase.

SPIDER—the ITER-scale negative ion source—turned on last year. Experiments on MITICA—a full-size prototype of ITER's 1 MV heating neutral beam injectors—are scheduled beginning 2022. Procurement is underway in Europe on the beam source and at Consorzio RFX in Padua, Italy, work is underway to install auxiliary components and systems.

In May, the first part of the MITICA beam source vacuum vessel was installed (photo). This stainless steel component was procured by the European Domestic Agency, Fusion for Energy, as a voluntary contribution to the ITER neutral beam development program.

See more about the manufacturing of the vessel here.

See more about the Neutral Beam Test Facility at Consorzio RFX here.

Modelling collaboration between ITER and TU/e
20 May 2019
Physics of Plasmas (American Institute of Physics) has published a paper on research carried out under a collaboration between the Eindhoven Technical University (TU/e, Netherlands) and the ITER Organization.

"Kinetic modeling of ELM-induced tungsten transport in a tokamak plasma" (D. C. van Vugt, G. T. A. Huijsmans, M. Hoelzl, A. Loarte, et al) describes the role of edge-localized modes (ELMs) in exhausting tungsten impurities from the core plasma of tokamaks to ensure that their concentration remains low.

The collaboration modelled tungsten impurity behaviour and power fluxes to plasma-facing components during controlled ELMs in ITER with advanced modelling by the JOREK code, which required specific upgrades to the code to include the necessary plasma-wall interaction and impurity transport processes.

The authors write: "This publication shows that the role of ELMs in cleaning up the plasma from tungsten eroded at the divertor in ITER can be opposite to that in present experiments, particularly when we approach the conditions required for high fusion energy production gain. This implies that the use of the ELM control coils, included in the ITER baseline design to modify ELM behaviour and eventually suppress ELMs, will be required not only for the control of power fluxes to the divertor but also to exhaust the eroded tungsten from the confined plasma to keep it clean."

Read the complete article on the TU/e website here.

Fusion diagnostic may help diagnose cancerous tumours
13 May 2019
In his time at DIFFER (the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research) and the Swiss Plasma Center, fusion researcher Wouter Vijvers developed a novel imaging diagnostic known as MANTIS (Multispectral Advanced Narrowband Tokamak Imaging System).

Today, as CEO of the fusion spin-off Chromodynamics, he is hoping to use his real-time imaging technique in applications such as medical diagnosis and industrial quality and process control.

Imagine if a surgeon removing a malignant tumour from a patient could precisely see the contours of the tumour while operating. "Healthy tissues and malignant tissues have different chemical profiles, and this difference is what multispectral imaging will be able to capture and show," he explains. "Combine that with real-time capabilities, and a surgeon could see the image of the malignant tissue while operating to ensure complete removal."

In the meantime, Vijvers is still using his technology to study the plasma edge. In a Cooperation Agreement signed in February with the ITER Organization, Chromodynamics is joining Dutch research institutes TNO and DIFFER as well as Active Space Technologies (Europe) to develop a diagnostic tool capable of measuring the impurity content of the plasma.

See the full article on the EUROfusion website.

Magic metal, lithium, to be tested in LTX-β upgrade
13 May 2019
Lithium, the light silvery metal used in everything from pharmaceutical applications to the batteries that power your smartphone or electric car, could also help harness fusion energy on Earth. Lithium can maintain the heat and protect the tokamak vessel walls, and it will be used to produce tritium, the hydrogen isotope that will combine with deuterium to fuel fusion.

At the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in the US, researchers have completed a three-year upgrade of the Lithium Tokamak Experiment, now called the Lithium Tokamak Experiment-Beta. This unique device will be able to test the ability of lithium to maintain the heat and protect the walls of the tokamak.

Photo: Interior view of the Lithium Tokamak Experiment prior to the upgrade.

See plans for the machine on the PPPL website.

Giving mega-science a big stage
02 May 2019
Vigyan Samagam, the first-ever mega-science exhibition on show in India, starts its ten-month multi-venue tour at the Nehru Science Centre in Mumbai on 8 May. The aim is to bring mega-science closer to society and raise awareness and enthusiasm—especially among the younger generations, inspiring them to consider science and research as formidable career options.

The exhibition will allow visitors to get first-hand impressions of the big science projects that are redefining the boundaries of human knowledge for the benefit of all, and in which India is participating. ITER is one of the seven projects featured (with CERN, the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO), the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) International Observatory).

After staying in Mumbai for the first two months, the exhibition will then travel to Bengaluru, Kolkata and Delhi.

For more information on the event, please click here.

Assembling testbed #2 for ITER's heating neutral beams
15 Apr 2019
The ITER neutral beam injectors will be first of a kind, operating at 1MV with negative ion beams up to 40A. As part of a risk mitigation strategy, the ITER Organization is testing key system components in advance of operation at the ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility in Padua, Italy. This facility, housed at the Consorzio RFX laboratory, is the only one in the world capable of demonstrating ITER heating neutral beam requirements simultaneously.

Experiments began last year on SPIDER, a full-scale negative ion source. A second testbed will come on line in 2022: MITICA, a full-scale prototype 1 MV injector that will allow scientists to test and optimize the beam source, accelerator, and beamline components.

Work is progressing on the assembly of the MITICA test bed now. Acceptance tests have been run on the high voltage power sources supplied by Europe and Japan (see this page for photos) and, recently, Europe delivered the vacuum chamber that will house the MITICA beam source (photo).

The 5-metre-tall, 67-tonne chamber was manufactured by De Pretto Industrie (Italy) under a contract signed with the European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy.

See more about the component on the Fusion for Energy website.

-- Final acceptance tests underway on the MITICA vacuum vessel at De Pretto Industrie.

Making a 1,000-tonne electromagnet
08 Apr 2019
In this new photomontage by General Atomics and US ITER, watch how ITER's 1,000-tonne central electromagnet is fabricated in a specialized workshop in Poway, California. It takes approximately 22-24 months to manufacture one central solenoid module, and six are needed for the ITER machine (plus a seventh as a spare). © General Atomics/US ITER

Click here to see the video.

JET secures funding through 2020
01 Apr 2019
Funding has been secured for the Joint European Tokamak (JET) through the end of 2020, providing welcome visibility to the world's largest operating fusion research facility in the context of uncertainty surrounding Brexit.

The future of JET has been under discussion since 2017 as its work is covered by the Euratom Treaty, which the UK Government intends to leave as part of the process of leaving the European Union.

The new contract signed last week between the UK and the European Commission provides reassurance for over 500 staff at JET, including many from outside the UK. It also means JET can conduct a series of vital fusion tests planned for 2020 that will serve as a "dress rehearsal" for ITER.

JET is operated by the UK Atomic Energy Authority at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE). Scientists from 28 European countries use it to conduct research into fusion energy through work coordinated by the EUROfusion consortium, which manages and funds European fusion research activities on behalf of Euratom.

Ian Chapman, CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, said: "The extension to the contract is excellent news for both European Union and UK science. JET has been a shining example of scientific cooperation between European Union members, and this news means that these mutually beneficial collaborations will continue, allowing us to do essential experiments on the path to delivering fusion power."

Tony Donné, Programme Manager of EUROfusion, added: "A heavy weight has been lifted off our shoulders. This is extraordinarily good news for EUROfusion and the European fusion community as a whole. We can now continue to work on the realization of fusion energy together with the indispensable experience of our British partner."

See the EUROfusion and CCFE websites for more on the funding news.

Fusion Summer School at IPP (Germany)
18 Mar 2019
Physics and engineering students of European universities are invited to attend the 2019 Summer University at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching, Germany, from 16 to 20 September.

The IPP Summer University for Plasma Physics and Fusion Research is designed for those students who have completed their bachelor's degree, but who have not yet decided on a PhD topic.

Lectures are planned on plasma physics, plasma-wall interaction and materials research, ITER and the next steps toward fusion energy, and more. The course will include a tour of the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak experiment (pictured) and laboratories.

Sign up by 31 May here.

New device may stop plasma disruptions fast
15 Mar 2019
Fusion scientists keep looking for ways to address the challenge of plasma disruptions, which can halt fusion reactions and potentially damage the plasma-facing components of a fusion device.

Researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and the University of Washington have developed a prototype device to control plasma disruptions. The electromagnetic particle injector, EPI, is a type of railgun that fires a high-velocity projectile, a sabot, from a pair of electrified rails into a plasma that is on the verge of disruption. The sabot releases light-metal pellets into the centre of the plasma that would spread out the energy of the disruption from the centre of the plasma to the edge, thus weakening its impact on the vessel walls.

The EPI can deliver the pellets more deeply into the plasma than other techniques. For physicist Roger Raman of the University of Washington, the primary advantage of the new device is "its potential to meet short-warning time scales." Pellets should be delivered in less than 20 milliseconds from the warning of a disruption, with 10 milliseconds as ideal. During tests, the EPI delivered pellets in less than 10 milliseconds. In comparison, the gas-propelled system needs 30 milliseconds.

Read the full article on the PPPL website, which includes a slow-motion video of an EPI shot.

(Photo by Elle Starkman)

56th Culham Plasma Physics Summer School
11 Mar 2019
The 56h Culham Plasma Physics Summer School is open to applications.

The school will cover fundamental plasma physics,  together with a broad understanding of its fields of application. No previous knowledge of the subject is expected, but familiarity with electromagnetism and applied mathematics at first degree level is recommended. Lecturers are drawn from the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) together with leading European universities. All are renowned experts in their fields.

For more details and to apply please visit: https://culhamsummerschool.org.uk/

Discount for early registrations before 15 May.

The deadline for applications is 25 May.

New tungsten alloy: potential material for fusion reactors
11 Mar 2019
Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States have developed thin films made of a tungsten alloy that could be used inside fusion reactors. The material, a nanocrystalline tungsten-tantalum-vanadium-chromium alloy, showed "outstanding radiation resistance when compared to pure nanocrystalline tungsten materials," said researcher Osman El Atawi in an article published in The Engineer.

The inside of a fusion reactor vessel faces the hot plasma and must withstand extremely high temperatures as well as bombardment by charged and neutral particles. Tungsten, which is currently considered the most suitable material to protect the inside of a vacuum vessel, tends to fracture after radiation, while the newly developed alloy material retains its mechanical properties.

Osman El Atawi (left) and Enrique Martinez collaborated with researchers from several scientific institutes in the United States, Poland and the United Kingdom. Their joint paper is published in Science Advances.

"A Glass of Seawater!" podcast
06 Mar 2019
What do you get when you mix three parts fusion doctoral training, two measures of outreach, many parts of information, and a final jigger of fun?

A Glass of Seawater!—a self-described "light, informative, and inspiring podcast all about the field of fusion energy research as seen through the eyes of PhD students from FUSION CDT*."

Now in its third season, the podcast takes on all kinds of nuclear fusion/plasma physics topics from, as the organizers are happy to admit, a "glass half full" perspective. What is incredibly hard—but also exciting—about research in fusion today? Which challenges have been overcome and which remain? What are the latest developments from the world of materials science? And—last but not least—how much fuel for the fusion reaction can be taken from a glass of seawater?

Tune in to Andrew, Bhavin, William and their many guests here, or look up A Glass of Seawater! on Facebook and Twitter.

Also, see this recent write-up from EUROfusion.

Five UK universities—Durham University, University of Liverpool, University of Manchester, University of Oxford, University of York—have joined within FUSION CDT to offer doctoral training in fusion-relevant disciplines such as plasma physics, material science, nuclear physics, technology, laser physics, and instrumentation. Learn more here.

"Planet ITER" stars in travelling exhibit
04 Mar 2019
Established in December 1893, the monthly L'Usine nouvelle ("The New Factory") is one of the oldest French trade magazines. To celebrate its 125th anniversary, the magazine organized a major travelling photography exhibit that will be presented at several engineering schools in France and eventually, in 2020, at the Palais du Luxembourg—home of the French Senate in Paris.

"Industry seen from above" brings together spectacular aerial photographs of industrial installations and infrastructure in France and abroad. And ITER is one of them.

The organizers chose a composite photo created by ITER contractor Emmanuel Riche from several drone views of the ITER site taken at dusk in December 2017. The resulting "planet"—centred on the Tokamak Building and its circular bioshield, with cranes jutting out at the "equator"—is one of the most spectacular renditions of the ITER site, in both its artistic and its documentary approach.

IPP tungsten image wins science photo award
25 Feb 2019
A photo of a specimen of tungsten-fibre-reinforced tungsten after a stress test won the first prize in science publisher Elsevier's "NuMart Image Competition". Johann Riesch and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) developed the composite material as part of the search for materials that could be used at high-stress locations in fusion plasma vessels.

Although tungsten is the metal with the highest melting point, it is highly brittle and develops cracks under punctual stresses. Taking their cue from fibre-reinforced ceramics, Riesch and his team developed tungsten-fibre-reinforced tungsten where tungsten fibres with a diameter of 150 micrometres bridge the cracks in the tungsten matrix.

The photo taken by Martin Balden shows the new material after a breaking test as seen by an electron-microscope, demonstrating how the fibres enhance the fracture toughness of the tungsten material. The image will feature on the cover of the jubilee issue of Elsevier's Journal of Nuclear Materials, which will be published in April 2019, marking its 60th anniversary.

See the full article on the IPP website here.

ITER goes manga 2.0
25 Feb 2019
The sequel of the ITER manga is out. Taiyô Tenno, the young Japanese art student who had visited Provence and had been introduced to ITER by French scientist Soléane, has returned to France. He spends his summer vacation as an intern at ITER's Communication Department where he and his two intern colleagues are tasked to come up with an idea of how to reach out to people all over the world and spread the word about ITER.

Taiyô meets Soléane again who introduces him to ITER's Deputy-Director Eisuke Tada. During a weekend walk on the Sainte Victoire mountain near Aix-en-Provence with Mr. Tada, Taiyô learns about the diversity at ITER, with experts coming from all over the world, sharing ideas in an open and frank atmosphere. Taiyô is inspired and returns to work full of ideas.

To find out how the story ends, read the new installment "A small sun on Earth. Volume 2: Internship chapter" published by ITER Japan. It is available in Japanese, English and French.

Download the manga on the ITER Japan website here or directly from the ITER Publications page (Comics).

This alloy has fusion in mind
18 Feb 2019
A two-year campaign to test the resistance of EUROFER97 steel, financed by the European Domestic Agency, has just ended at the Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group (NRG) of the Netherlands.

The European Domestic Agency, Fusion for Energy, will be using a new kind of steel—EUROFER97—in its test blanket module program for its ability to resist high heat fluxes and neutron activation. In 2015, the agency contracted with Studsvik (Sweden) and its subcontractor NRG to study the performance of the steel after irradiation in conditions similar to those expected at ITER. Four irradiation campaigns with EUROFER97 steel samples have now been carried out in NRG's High Flux Reactor in Petten and the samples will undergo full analysis at Studsvik for brittleness, material strength, and microscopic changes.

Read the article in World Nuclear News.

How Europe benefits from ITER
28 Jan 2019
A recent public hearing organized by the Budgetary Control Committee of the European Parliament has shed a light on the significant impact of ITER in terms of economic benefits and job creation.

According to Massimo Garribba, Director at the Commission's Directorate-General for Energy, ITER has produced almost EUR 4.8 billion in gross value added and almost 34,000 "job years" over the period 2008-2017 through the award of over 900 contracts and grants in 24 countries of the European Union.

European companies report that working for ITER generates a new knowledge base, offers new business opportunities and increases their competitiveness and growth, helping to create additional jobs.

Read the details on the Fusion for Energy website.

Plasma webcam among world's "most interesting"
28 Jan 2019
Thousands of live webcams throughout the world provide viewers with spectacular natural vistas, cityscapes and beaches, trendy bars and colourful markets in real time. Every year the EarthCam network, a website that collects webcams from thousands of sites across the globe, selects 25 of the most interesting views offered to the public.

As expected, webcam #1 in 2018 was pointed at a beautiful natural scene—the Arenal volcano in Costa Rica which, until a few years ago, was one of the most active in the world. There were also cats among the first tier of the awardees.

The surprise however came with webcam #18, the Remote Glow Discharge Experiment (RGDX) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), over which the EarthCam editors confessed they were "geeking out."

The RDGX allows viewers to turn on a plasma and change the gas pressure, the voltage, and the strength of the electromagnets from any place in the world.

Along with a webcam focused on a light bulb that has been shining at the Livermore, California, Fire Department for... 117 years ... and an interactive robot-controlling cam in Oakland, also in California, Princeton's RDGX is the only science- and technology-oriented webcam to make the first "25 most interesting webcams" in the world.

Read the original article on the PPPL website.

Raindrops and fiery sightings: new research from around the world
21 Jan 2019
At the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), researcher Fulvio Militello is working on a statistical model that compares the seemingly random movement of filaments (structures that emerge at the edges of the hot plasma) to the behaviour of raindrops. In the same way that each unique raindrop follows the same laws of physics (they hit the pavement), filaments that differ in strength, speed, size, amplitude or position follow certain rules as they move. Militello's model estimates collective behaviour in order to give scientists a tool to predict and control them. Read more about his theory on the CCFE website.

In working with data from the DIII-D tokamak, physicists Ahmed Diallo and Julien Dominski from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have uncovered a trigger for a particular type of ELM—fiery bursts of plasma called Edge Localized Modes—that does not fit into present models. Their findings could shed light on the variety of mechanisms leading to the onset of ELMs and could broaden the portfolio of ELM suppression tools. Read the full report on the PPPL website.

A new Chair for EUROfusion's General Assembly
14 Jan 2019
On October 9 2014, fusion research bodies from European Union member states and Switzerland signed an agreement to cement European collaboration on fusion research and EUROfusion—the European Consortium for Development of Fusion Energy—was born. EUROfusion supports and funds fusion research activities on behalf of the European Commission's Euratom program. Today, there are 30 participating research organizations and universities from 26 European member states plus Switzerland and the Ukraine.

Beginning this month, Ambrogio Fasoli replaces Jérome Pamela as the Chair of EUROfusion's decision-making body, the General Assembly. Jérome Pamela had been in the role since January 2015.

Challenges ahead for the new Chair include the transition to the next European research and innovation framework program, Horizon Europe; navigating the uncertainties linked to Brexit; and the strategic direction of EUROfusion as it pursues the objectives laid out in the European Roadmap to Fusion Electricity.

Read interviews of the incoming and outgoing Chairs on the EUROfusion website.

See an on-line biography of the new Chair on the EPFL website.

Fusion Power Associates: Expectations through the 2020s
14 Jan 2019
Every year in December, the annual meeting of the Fusion Power Associates brings together senior representatives of the US and international fusion communities and US policymakers to review the status of fusion research and consider the way forward.

The 39th annual meeting, organized in Washington D.C. on 4-5 December 2018 on the topic of "Strategies and Expectations Through the 2020s," was no different—representatives from US government and US national labs and universities mixed with representatives from programs in Canada, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom and, of course, ITER to review the fusion research landscape and promising paths to fusion energy.

All presentations from the 39th Annual Meeting can be downloaded here.

Fusion world: A process that stabilizes plasmas
14 Jan 2019
Researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in the US are reporting findings that can be beneficial to ITER, says John Greenwald on the laboratory's website.

Results published by theoretical physicist Allan Reiman and his colleague Professor Nat Fisch in Physical Review Letters focus on so-called tearing modes—instabilities in the plasma that create magnetic islands, which are a key source of plasma disruptions.

Currents driven by radio frequency waves in the interior of these magnetic islands can stabilize deleterious tearing modes, an effect that is augmented by small perturbations in the plasma's temperature.

"When the power deposition in the island exceeds a threshold level, there is a jump in the temperature that greatly strengthens the stabilizing effect," says Reiman. "This allows the stabilization of larger islands than previously thought possible."

Read the full report on the PPPL website.

Physicists Allan Reiman, left, and Nat Fisch. (Photos by Elle Starkman)

ITER Business Forum: register now
07 Jan 2019
Registration is open now for the 2019 edition of the ITER Business Forum (IBF/2019) to be held in Antibes, France from 26 to 28 March.

At IBF/2019, representatives of the ITER Organization, the Domestic Agencies, and main suppliers will be making presentations on industrial involvement in the project, procurement opportunities, and main future calls for tender.

In specific thematic sessions, registered delegates will have the opportunity to meet potential partners or subcontractors at the French, European or international level. A 1-1 meeting schedule tool is also available on line for all registered companies.

To find out more about the conference, to register to participate, or to reserve a stand, please see the IBF/2019 website.

Is fusion's future on the Moon?
07 Jan 2019
Like mountaineers at the foot of Mount Everest, spacefaring nations have aimed for the Moon "because it's there." Now, close to 60 years after the first object from Earth landed (or more accurately "crashed") on the surface of our satellite and half a century after Apollo 11 gently deposited two men on the Sea of Tranquility, there are very concrete incentives to 21st century lunar exploration.

And one of these incentives has to do with the future of fusion.

Research today is essentially focused on the fusion of hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, which is the "easiest" to achieve with our present technological capabilities. However, other energy-producing combinations of light nuclei are theoretically possible, a few of which involve the helium isotope 3 (3He). Fusing 3He with itself or with deuterium offers the immense advantage of not producing neutrons and hence avoids activating materials in the fusion chamber.

Carried by solar wind, 3He is prevented from reaching the surface of our planet because of the magnetic field that protects it. On the Moon however, where the magnetic field is considerably weaker, large quantities of 3He have accumulated close to the surface. For many years, some scientists, politicians, and private companies (and even a former Apollo astronaut) have made the argument for "mining the Moon" for 3He. Other scientists argue that mining the Moon for 3He is pure ... moonshine.

Despite the controversy, 3He recently made headlines in relation with the recent landing of the Chinese rover Chang'e 4 on the dark side of the Moon. Professor Ouyang Ziyuan, the Chief Scientist of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, was widely quoted saying that a long-term industrial program to mine the Moon for 3He was economically justified.  "The moon is 'so rich' in helium 3," he said, "that it could solve humanity's energy demand for around 10,000 years at least."

Photo: The Chang'e 4 module landed on the dark side of the Moon on 3 January 2019.

2018

US National Academies: US should remain in ITER
21 Dec 2018
The US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has completed a multiyear study of the overall status of magnetic confinement fusion research in the United States. Its recommendation? Continued US participation in the ITER Project and an unambiguous increase in funding for the domestic fusion program leading to the construction of a compact pilot plant.

The Final Report of the Committee on a Strategic Plan for Burning Plasma Research was the latest in a number of steps undertaken by policymakers in the United States to evaluate the state of domestic fusion research—including current and planned participation in international programs—and to develop a strategic plan for the future.

The final report issued in December 2018 makes two recommendations:

  • The United States should remain an ITER partner as the most cost-effective way to gain experience with a burning plasma at the scale of a power plant.
  • The United States should start a national program of accompanying research and technology leading to the construction of a compact pilot plant that produces electricity from fusion at the lowest possible capital cost.
See the press release for more information or to download the full report.

A tokamak made of virtual glass
19 Dec 2018
A new simulation tool helps scientists to understand how a tokamak would look during a fusion experiment. Research Software Engineer Alex Meakins of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in the UK has created a series of computerized images of the JET tokamak rendered in glass with the help of CHERAB, a simulation tool that combines plasma modelling with a powerful photo-realistic ray-tracer. This technique traces the path of light through a virtual world and predicts the effects of light bouncing off objects.

CHERAB helps address a long-standing problem for fusion diagnostics—the interference of light reflection from the metal surfaces inside a tokamak's vacuum chamber with the ability to make accurate plasma measurements.

Read the full article published by CCFE here.

Celebrating a successful year
10 Dec 2018
On 3 December, over 1,100 ITER staff, contractors, partners, families and friends celebrated the end of 2018 as a successful year for the ITER Project and its mission to create clean and safe energy for the future.

Opening the evening at the Grand Théâtre de Provence in Aix-en-Provence, ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot told the audience that "our progress is the result of hard work, creative problem-solving and strong commitment on the part of every member of the ITER Team."

The highlight of the evening was the show of the award-winning shadow dance team Die Mobilés from Germany, whose masterful play with shapes, light and music took the audience on a tour to ITER Member countries around the world and through a short history of film. With astonishing creativity and as a special surprise for the audience, the artists brought ITER to life on stage—including a depiction of a busy worksite and a Tokamak model.

See a video clip from the show here.

ITER International School: register now
10 Dec 2018
Registration is now open for the 10th ITER International School, which will take place in Daejeon, Korea, from 21 to 25 January 2019. The registration fee for foreign students of KRW 340,000 (equivalent to around EUR 265, VAT included) includes accommodation, lunches and dinners, and bus service between the hotel and the school.

The ITER International School aims to prepare young scientists/engineers for work in the field of nuclear fusion and in research applications associated with the ITER Project.

The 10th edition, to be held at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon, is organized around "The Physics and Technology of Power Flux Handling in Tokamaks." This subject has an interdisciplinary character: power flux handling in tokamaks is key challenge for the development of nuclear fusion, but one that can only be resolved through the integration of physics-based approaches to decrease power fluxes on the tokamak wall together with technological developments for tokamak wall components.

For more information or to register, please visit www.iterschool2019.kr.

President Xi Jinping explains ITER and fusion
03 Dec 2018
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of China's Reform and Opening, President Xi Jinping visited the Exhibition of Achievements and explained ITER and fusion energy development in China to the other six members of the Political Bureau, the highest decision-making body in China.

ITER @ COP24
03 Dec 2018
Starting this week, politicians, scientists, strategists and non-governmental organizations meet in Katowice, Poland, for the 24th United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP24. ITER will present its quest for a new and clean source of energy on Thursday, 6 December, as physicist Greg de Temmerman steps into the ring to share the latest updates on the project.

Following his talk, starting at 11:00 a.m. in the Climate Action Hub amphitheatre, there will be a screening of the award-winning fusion documentary "Let there be Light."

You can see the entire talk on the COP24 website. Click on the respective agenda item on the right-hand side - the video will start after about one minute.

 

Wendelstein 7-X: new stellarator record
30 Nov 2018
The stellarator fusion device Wendelstein 7-X achieved record results during its three-month experimental campaign in 2018, reports the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald, Germany.

In experiments run from July to October, operators were able to improve plasma temperatures and densities over the first campaign and achieve long discharge times of up to 100 seconds. A 30-second plasma at 6 MW was achieved with an input heating energy of 200 MJ, while at reduced power a 100-second plasma was achieved at 2 MW.

These results are "highly satisfying" and represent some of the best stellarator values to date, the press release reports. The team is now pursuing further engineering upgrades—notably the replacement of current plasma-facing components with actively water-cooled components—to enable even higher plasma energies and, ultimately, plasmas lasting 30 minutes.

Read the full report on IPP's website.

All about ITER staffing
26 Nov 2018
You might wonder how many people are employed by the ITER Organization. Or how the staff pool breaks down in terms of hiring category, education level, gender or age. Or even something about family profile or Member representation.

With 35 countries participating, "diversity" is perhaps the word that best characterizes human resources at ITER. Find out more about hiring statistics, staff metrics, mobility, training, performance and more in the ITER Organizaton 2017 Social Report.

All ITER publications can be downloaded from this dedicated page on the ITER website.

Plasma edge research with supercomputer
26 Nov 2018
The fastest supercomputer in the world, Summit (launched earlier this year at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US) will be instrumental in advancing fusion studies. Choong-Seock Chang, head of the Center for Edge Physics Simulation (EPSI) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (US), studies the complex physics at the edge of fusion plasmas by running simulations on Summit. "It enables us to do physics which we have not been able to do before," he says.

According to Chang, scientists discovered that putting more heat into the edge of a plasma eliminated impurities and calmed the plasma. The supercomputer, featuring 2700 NVIDIA Volta GPUs, runs simulations to help get an understanding at the fundamental level of how these processes function. With the help of artificial intelligence, Summit will sift through the huge amount of simulation data and select the data with "the new physics."

The ultimate goal, says Chang, is to model the entire device and "build a virtual tokamak so that we can predict and design the next fusion reactor."

See the video published by NVIDIA here.

Call for nominations: Miya-Abdou Award
26 Nov 2018
For the ninth time, the International Standing Committee for the International Symposium on Fusion Nuclear Technology (ISFNT) has published a call for nomination for the Miya-Abdou Award. The prize honours outstanding contributions to the field of fusion nuclear technology by young nuclear scientists or engineers. Winners receive the award at the biennial gathering of the ISFNT.

The award is named after fusion experts Kenzo Miya who used to work at the University of Tokyo and Mohamed Abdou from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in recognition of their contribution to the field of fusion nuclear technology.

The ninth Miya-Abdou Award will be presented at the 14th ISFNT meeting from 22-27 September 2019 in Budapest, Hungary. The deadline for nominations is 15 May 2019.

For more information please consult ISFNT's website.

Italy's new fusion test facility: calling out to industry
26 Nov 2018
The Divertor Tokamak Test facility (DTT) is a new Italian fusion project that aims to address one of the major challenges identified in the European Fusion Roadmap: i.e., exhausting power from fusion reactors. The project is led by the Italian national Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Development (ENEA) in collaboration with all the Italian fusion community and international institutions.

"DTT will mark a significant step forward for fusion development in Europe and worldwide," stresses DTT project leader Aldo Pizzuto, "and it will help to strengthen the industry involvement in fusion technology and engineering."

The DTT facility will be located in the ENEA premises in Frascati and the first industrial procurements for its components will be launched in early 2019. A DTT Industry Day will be held on 14 December 2018 in Frascati, which will be dedicated to the presentation of the procurement strategy and schedule. Business-to-business (B2B) meetings and bilateral thematic tables will also be organized.

To register for the DTT Industry Day click here.

For more information on the Divertor Tokamak Test facility, see this website.

Four large transformers expected on Friday
19 Nov 2018
Another Highly Exceptional Load (HEL) passes through the six-kilometre-long channel (the Canal de Caronte) that leads from the Mediterranean into the inland sea Étang de Berre through the town of Martigues.

The load consists of four transformers—one poloidal field coil rectifier procured by China and three central solenoid converters (89 tonnes each) procured by Korea. All four are "step down transformers" that lower the 66 kV tension to a few kilovolts before the AC current is transformed into DC to be fed to the magnets. The HEL convoy will begin its land journey on Wednesday and is expected at ITER in the wee hours of Friday. Three more poloidal field coil rectifiers, stored in DAHER facility in Berre, will hit the road on Wednesday 28 November to be delivered at ITER the following Friday.

EAST tokamak pushes past 100 million °C
19 Nov 2018
The Chinese Academy of Sciences has reported that the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) at the Institute of Plasma Physics in Hefei has achieved an electron temperature of over 100 million degrees in its core plasma during a four-month experiment carried out earlier this year in collaboration with domestic and international colleagues.

Power injection exceeded 10 MW, and plasma stored energy reached 300 kJ after scientists optimized the coupling of different heating techniques (lower hybrid wave heating, electron cyclotron wave heating, ion cyclotron resonance heating and neutral beam ion heating). The experiment utilized advanced plasma control and theory/simulation prediction.

Research at EAST on physics and technology issues under steady-state operational conditions is directly relevant to ITER. Recent experiments on plasma equilibrium and instability, confinement and transport, plasma-wall interaction, and energetic particle physics have demonstrated long-time scale, steady-state H-mode operation with good control of impurity, core/edge MHD stability, and heat exhaust using an ITER-like tungsten divertor. 

Read a detailed report here.

£20 million additional funding for UK fusion
12 Nov 2018
The UK government has pledged to provide an additional £20m in 2019-20 to the UK Atomic Energy Agency (UKAEA), the public body responsible for research into nuclear fusion and the management of the country's largest fusion research laboratory, the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE).

"We think fusion has a big role to play," said UKAEA CEO Professor Ian Chapman. "The fuels are abundant around the globe, it doesn't release greenhouse gases and it doesn't produce long-lived radioactive waste like the nuclear fission power we have today."

The 2018 Budget reaffirms the government's commitment to nuclear energy following an absence of new investments into the sector in the 2017 Budget.

According to the World Nuclear Association, nuclear power accounted for 21% of UK electricity in September this year, however "almost half" of the country's 15 reactors are expected to be decommissioned by 2025.

Read the full article  in "Power Technology" here.

Photo: The Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE).

37-second plasma marks WEST's first milestone
12 Nov 2018
Thirty-seven seconds might seem like a very short duration—but not for a plasma, and even less for a plasma produced by a machine that is just commencing operations.

The 37-second plasma that WEST obtained on 31 October exceeds by 7 seconds the first of five milestones ("Key Project Indicators") that were assigned to the machine on its way to final commissioning.

The good news did not come alone—the final ITER-like, actively-cooled full tungsten divertor has just been ordered. It will replace the present non-actively cooled divertor made of tungsten-covered graphite blocks and only a few actively cooled test plasma-facing units.

When this new divertor is installed, WEST will be able to produce ITER-relevant plasmas of up to 1,000 seconds.

Breaking news: first component installed next week
12 Nov 2018
In the third week of November, the ITER Organization will be installing the first component of the machine in the basement of the Tokamak Building.

The 10-metre, 6-tonne metal component is one segment of the magnet feeder that will relay electrical power, cryogenic fluids and instrumentation cables from outside of the machine in to poloidal field coil #4. The specific section to be installed, called a "feedthrough," will cross through the bioshield and cryostat at the lowest (B2) level of the building.

Delivered by the Chinese Domestic Agency to ITER last year, the component has undergone testing at the MIFI workshop (Magnet Infrastructure Facilities for ITER), which is operated jointly by a team from ITER and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).

Most recently, the lifting operation was tested at MIFI using a specially designed tool delivered by the Korean Domestic Agency (picture). Next week the component will be transferred by truck to a staging area, and then lifted up into the circular assembly area and lowered to the floor.

Stay tuned for a report in the 26 November issue of the ITER Newsline on the first act of the machine installation phase.

Control panel in Russia allows remote participation on world tokamaks
12 Nov 2018
At the Troitsk Institute for Innovative and Fusion Research (Moscow region), specialists have established a unique remote control panel that enables participation on leading fusion devices around the world.

Based on the facility's lab complex for neutron and spectroscopy diagnostics, the panel will facilitate the creation and calibration of diagnostic systems for ITER under Russian procurement scope.

The first cooperation line has been established with Europe's JET tokamak, based in Culham, UK.  

PPPL: New interim deputy director for operations
29 Oct 2018
Rich Hawryluk—who was Deputy Director-General for the Administration Department at the ITER Organization from 2011 to 2013—has been appointed interim deputy director for operations of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) while an international search for a permanent operations director moves forward. 

Hawryluk will assume the position of Terry Brog, who is stepping down from his position. Brog will remain at the Laboratory for the next six months as the head of special assignments and will work on special projects for the Department of Energy and will help develop a technology transfer plan for the Laboratory. 

This is a familiar role for Hawryluk. He served as deputy director for 11 years from 1997 to 2008. Hawryluk came to PPPL in 1974 after receiving his Ph.D. in physics from MIT. During his 44-year career, he has worked on most of the major fusion experiments at PPPL. He was head of the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor, then the largest magnetic confinement facility in the United States, from 1991 to 1997. After leaving his position as deputy director, he headed PPPL's ITER and Tokamaks Department from 2009 to 2011. From 2011 to 2013, he worked at ITER in France, serving as the deputy director-general for the Administration Department of ITER.  After returning to the Laboratory in 2013, Hawryluk headed the ITER and Tokamaks Department for three years. In 2016, he became head of the NSTX-U Recovery Project and headed that effort until becoming interim Laboratory director in September 2017. 

Read more here.

Next ITER Business Forum in March
29 Oct 2018
The 2019 edition of the ITER Business Forum will be held in the French city of Antibes from 26 to 28 March.

Organized by Agence Iter France with the participation of the ITER Organization, the European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy, and other Domestic Agencies, the event has three aims:

  • To offer firms the opportunity to learn more about ITER business opportunities;
  • To facilitate partnerships between industries within Europe and outside Europe, and;
  • To foster collaboration between industry and fusion laboratories.
The 2017 event drew over 1,000 participants from 433 companies and 25 countries. Ninety-six percent confirmed that the event had allowed them "to identify potential clients, partners or subcontractors."

The website is open at this address. Registration and stand booking will be possible from mid-November on.

£50 million MAST upgrade concludes
22 Oct 2018
Five years of construction work to upgrade the spherical tokamak MAST (UK) have been brought to a close and experiments are set to begin early next year.

MAST Upgrade will contribute to the knowledge base for ITER by helping to resolve key plasma physics issues. It will be the first tokamak to trial the Super-X divertor—a novel way to exhaust heat loads from large fusion reactors, which spreads the power loads in the divertor area of the machine. Other features of the upgrade include an increase in the pulse length by a factor approaching ten, additional heating power, and better control and pumping capabilities to contain the resulting higher temperature, longer-pulse plasmas.

A ceremony was held on 18 October at the UK's Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE). See the full report here.

Sky News: Where the energy of our fossil-fuel-free future is taking shape
18 Oct 2018
Follow Sky News presenter Thomas Moore as he explores the promise, the science, and the construction of the "world's largest science experiement."

Watch the three-minute video here.

Al Jazeera reports on ITER
18 Oct 2018
Can ITER be the answer to the world's energy needs? A team from Al Jazeera Paris came on site in October to find out. After descending into the depths of the Tokamak Complex, interviewing the ITER Director-General and site specialists, and observing daily activities at ITER Headquarters over two days, team prepared a report that concludes with:

"Critics say there's a risk that ITER won't work or will never lead to fusion energy being commercially viable ... But if it does work it could help save the planet from climate change and prove the power of the human imagination. For those here, it's a gamble worth taking." 

Watch it here.

Take a spin on the virtual ITER worksite
08 Oct 2018
Want to see what the ITER platform will look like when all the buildings are complete? Check (and play with) this spectacular 3D model developped by the European Domestic Agency F4E. (Works best on Chrome)

UK fusion centre/university collaborating on materials
01 Oct 2018
As part of an investment made last year by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to launch a fusion technology platform at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), the "Fusion Technology Facilities" (FTM) centre of excellence will house a suite of equipment designed to test fusion components under combined thermal, mechanical, hydraulic and magnetic loads representative of future fusion power stations.

In the build-up period, the team is establishing links to promote knowledge sharing and to support an ambitious industry-related research program. CCFE has just announced that a strong collaboration is planned between the Materials Technology Laboratory at FTM and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bristol (UK). The establishment of complementary test equipment at Bristol and the funding of a joint post-doctoral research position are part of the agreement.

Read more at CCFE and the University of Bristol.

A fusion powered future?
27 Sep 2018
In the latest edition of Fusion in Europe, young volunteer writers imagine what a future with fusion might look at.

Download the magazine here

Carlos Alejaldre appointed Director General of CIEMAT
24 Sep 2018
On 21 September, Carlos Alejaldre, who was an ITER Organization Deputy-Director-General from 2006 to 2015, was appointed Director-General of CIEMAT (Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas), the Spanish public research agency focused on energy and the environment.

A plasma physicist by training, Carlos has held several important positions in fusion research. Prior to joining ITER, he headed CIEMAT's national fusion laboratory (1992-2004)and was for two years (2004-2006) the director general of technological policy at the Spanish ministry of Education and Science.

More on the CIEMAT website (in Spanish).

The adventure of logistics
17 Sep 2018
In this recent video, ITER global logistics provider DAHER takes us through the different phases and challenges of transporting massive ITER components from their manufacturing location, sometimes half way across the world, to the project's construction site in southern France.

New cameras focus on JET plasma
17 Sep 2018
New cameras are capturing detailed images of fusion energy experiments at the Joint European Torus at Culham. The cameras are actually outside the machine hall and relay video back from the heart of the 100-million-degree plasma via a set of mirrors. The footage will be used by EUROfusion scientists in forthcoming experiments to monitor JET's operation and to carry out studies on the plasma's behaviour and properties. The video shows the comparative view from two identical cameras: one located outside the bioshield wall (left) and one inside the Torus Hall (right).

Fusion documentary to be shown at IAEA General Conference
17 Sep 2018
ITER proves that we can collaborate for the common good, film maker Mila Aung-Thwin says in an interview with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Ahead of its 62nd General Conference which will take place from 17-21 September 2018 in Vienna, Austria, the IAEA interviewed Aung-Thwin about his award-winning documentary Let There Be Light. The feature-length film tells the story of dedicated scientists and their pursuit of nuclear fusion as a future source of clean, safe and abundant energy.

Aung-Thwin explains how his fascination with the human side of science and his interest in energy issues let him to explore the field of fusion and the many fusion projects worldwide. "The film is meant to illuminate some of the approaches to fusion, some of the challenges, as told by unique individuals," he says.

Along with ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot and Scientific Director of IPP Sibylle Günter, film director Aung-Thwin will be in Vienna next week and will speak at the General Conference's session on "Fusion Energy for Peace and Sustainable Development" on 18 September.

The session will be followed by a showing of the fusion documentary Let There Be Light .

The documentary is available worldwide on Vimeo for purchase and rent both in English and French. In North America it is also available on iTunes and Amazon.

A step forward in tackling plasma instabilities
12 Sep 2018
A team around physicist Jong-Kuy Park of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has made significant progress in tackling a common instability in fusion plasmas called edge localized modes or ELMs.

Bursts of ELMs, energy releases likened to solar flares, can slam into the walls of a tokamak and potentially cause damage. In order to prevent these EMLs from occurring, scientists produce small magnet ripples called resonant magnetic perturbations, or RMPs, that disturb the plasma and release excess pressure. As there are many potential magnetic distortions, it is a difficult task to create the right kind of beneficial distortions.

Park's team of scientists from the United States and the National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI) in Korea has "successfully predicted the entire set of beneficial 3D distortions for controlling ELMs without creating more problems," says a PPPL article.

The predictions were validated at the Korean Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) facility. Its advanced magnetic controls for generating precise 3D distortions made KSTAR the ideal testing device.

The research findings, published as a paper in Nature Physics, will be important for ITER--a device that will employ dedicated magnets to produce 3D distortions to control ELMs.

The colour-shaded areas on the plasma illustrate the beneficial magnetic distortions, while the thin lines in pink and purple surrounding the plasma represent the 3D field coils that generate the distortions. Credit: Jong-Kyu Park, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

ITER to feature in History's "Project Impossible" series
11 Sep 2018
Get your DVR ready! The US TV channel History is kicking off "Project Impossible," an original series that follows a new generation of epic engineering projects that were considered unthinkable just a few years ago.

The first episode to air—Biggest Engineering Breakthroughs—will feature the world's fastest motorcycle (it's electric), a train that travels faster than the speed of sound, and ITER—a power plant that creates a small Sun on Earth.

The first episode airs on 12 September. Check your local listings as episode times may vary.

Watch the trailer here.

Korea's KSTAR produces 20,000th plasma
10 Sep 2018
Korea's superconducting tokamak KSTAR has run successfully since 2008. In December 2016, the machine produced a record 70-second high-performance plasma (H-mode) and achieved record-length periods of ELM suppression the following year.

Although smaller and different in detailed design, the Korean machine has built an extremely valuable database for the future operation of ITER.

On 4 September, KSTAR passed an important milestone: at 11:20 a.m., the machine produced its 20,000th plasma shot—all of them achieved without accident or major repair.

Read more (in Korean) here.

2018 recipients of the Landau-Spitzer Award
03 Sep 2018
The Landau-Spitzer Award on the Physics of Plasmas for "outstanding contributions to plasma physics" is jointly sponsored by the Plasma Physics Divisions of the American Physical Society (APS) and the European Physical Society (EPS).

The Award is given to an individual or group of researchers for outstanding theoretical, experimental or technical contribution(s) in plasma physics and for advancing the collaboration and unity between Europe and the USA by joint research or research that advances knowledge which benefits the two communities in a unique way. The award may be given to a team or collaboration of up to four persons affiliated with either the European or US institutions.

The 2018 recipients are:

Yevgen Kazakov, Laboratory for Plasma Physics of the Royal Military Academy (LPP-ERM/KMS), Brussels, Belgium
Jozef Ongena, Laboratory for Plasma Physics of the Royal Military Academy (LPP-ERM/KMS), Brussels, Belgium
John. C. Wright, MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, USA
Stephen J. Wukitch, MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, USA

The winners were selected "for experimental verification, through collaborative experiments, of a novel and highly efficient ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) scenario for plasma heating and generation of energetic ions in magnetic fusion devices."

-- From left to right : Yegven Kazakov, Jef Ongena (with the first wall of JET as background)and Steven Wukitch, John Wright (with the first wall of Alcator C-Mod as background)

For more detail on the winners and their work please see the APS announcement, the LPP-ERM/KMS website, and MIT News.

Listen to podcast with ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot
23 Aug 2018
Titans of Nuclear is a podcast featuring interviews with experts on nuclear energy by self-described engineer, robotics entrepreneur, and climate change thought leader Bret Kugelmass. In one of the most recent podcasts, Kugelmass interviews ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot on his experience in the nuclear field in France, the fundamentals of fusion energy, and the status of the ITER Project and its potential importance to the future of energy ...

Click here to listen to the 43-minute podcast.

UK universities join forces with Culham to tackle turbulence
19 Jul 2018
The Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) is partnering with a group of leading universities to advance understanding of one of the hottest topics in fusion research: turbulence in tokamak plasmas.

The £5 million-plus research program, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), will be led by a consortium of universities with a strong fusion focus—York, Oxford, Strathclyde and Warwick—and will work in partnership with Culham.

A tokamak operates by using a strong magnetic field to hold the hot fusion fuel—which is in the plasma state—away from the reactor walls. In practice the plasma in tokamak experiments is highly turbulent, and this turbulence increases the loss of heat and particles, degrading the fusion performance. If the turbulence can be reduced, this could open the way to more compact or higher fusion power reactors.

As part of the new initiative, scientists will study how well the magnetic field can confine the plasma in CCFE's new MAST Upgrade spherical tokamak. They will also seek to shed further light on the properties of an insulating region that exists at the edge of most tokamak plasmas, including JET, called the pedestal region. This narrow region suppresses the loss of heat and fuel from the plasma, helping to raise the core pressure closer to fusion conditions. The more insulating the pedestal, the higher the central plasma pressure.

Read the full article on the CCFE website here.

--The MAST Upgrade control room (SMD Photography)

ELISE test rig contributes to ITER neutral beam heating
09 Jul 2018
At the core of ITER's neutral beam heating system is a novel high-frequency ion source that has been under development for years at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching, Germany. In recent results that are significant for ITER, IPP's ELISE test rig has achieved the ion current required by ITER in hydrogen for 1,000 seconds.

Neutral beam injection relies on high-speed, high energy atoms that penetrate deep into the plasma and transfer their energy to plasma particles by means of collision. The large plasma volume at ITER will impose new requirements on this proven method of injection: the particles will have to move three to four times faster than in previous systems in order to penetrate far enough into the plasma, and at these higher rates the positively-charged ions become difficult to neutralize.

At ITER, for the first time, a negatively-charged ion source has been selected, based on the development of several generations of prototype negative ion sources at IPP.

Since 2009 IPP's ELISE test rig—half the size of what is projected for ITER—has been a valuable source of experimental data as it has advanced step by step to new orders of magnitude. In the most recent report, ELISE was able to produce a stable, homogenous negative ion beam for 1,000 seconds at ITER current strength.

In addition to further work on ELISE, IPP will be collaborating with teams at ITER's Neutral Beam Test Facility, where the full-scale ITER-scale negative ion source SPIDER was commissioned earlier this year.

Read the full report on the website of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.

'Fusion in Europe' is out
02 Jul 2018
Fusion in Europe's second edition this year is filled to the brim with interesting articles. Take the report about the latest experiment at the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER). Their linear plasma generator Magnum-PSI has set a new record for the longest exposure of any material to the harsh plasma conditions in a fusion device.

A high vacuum is crucial for the fusion reaction to take place —Fusion in Europe spoke to German supplier Lybold about how they deliver custom-made vacuum solutions to Europe's fusion devices, including ITER.

"Now is the best time to be at JET," says Eva Belonohy who contributes to preparations for the second deuterium-tritium campaign at JET in over 20 years, planned for 2019 and 2020. She organized a recent workshop for fusion scientists, to share JET's latest features such as its enhanced heating powers and diagnostics or its ITER-like wall made of beryllium and tungsten.

The latest edition of Fusion in Europe also includes a report from the recent inauguration of SPIDER, the largest ion beam source in the word, in Padova, Italy; introduces award-winning young fusion expert Wei Zhang; and shows an example of how the enthusiasm for fusion can be passed on from one generation to the next within one family.

To read the current edition of Fusion in Europe click here.

New supercomputer to boost fusion research
02 Jul 2018
Summit, the world's fastest supercomputer recently launched at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the US, will be instrumental in accelerating fusion research.

The new supercomputer takes computing powers to new heights. Summit can perform 200 petaflops per second: that is 200 quadrillion calculations, eight times more than the previous record-holder at ORNL, Titan. The massive machine—weighing more than a commercial aircraft—is also the world's largest computer equipped with artificial intelligence ... a machine whose software will write new software.

Harnessing Summit's capabilities in machine learning and simulation as well as in artificial intelligence and deep learning will allow researchers to accelerate scientific discovery in many fields, including fusion. 

For more information on Summit read the ORNL news release here and the NVIDIA blog post here.

Celebrating our women engineers
25 Jun 2018
What do Anna, Margaret, Aneeqa, Natalia, Sarah, Kat and Karina have in common?

All these women are engineers who are contributing to ITER by working on exciting issues such as building the ion cyclotron antenna, designing and manufacturing the divertor, reducing the risk of beryllium exposure to future workers, or modelling material migration.

For the first time this year, the ITER community joined in to mark the International Women in Engineering Day on 23 June. You can find out more about ITER's women engineers in the Twitter feed of the ITER Women's Network.

The day was launched as a national day by the Women's Engineering Society in the United Kingdom in 2014 to celebrate its 95th anniversary. Due to a high level of  response, interest and enthusiasm, the event turned international in 2017 and received UNESCO patronage in 2016 and again in 2018.

The International Women in Engineering Day is now an international awareness campaign to raise the profile of women in engineering and related sciences. By celebrating the achievements of women in this field, the annual event seeks to inspire young women to consider a career in engineering.

Find out more here.

--Anneqa Khan is a mechanical engineer in ITER's Science Division, working on modelling material migration and fuel retention.

Indian tokamak to reboot soon
25 Jun 2018
India plans to reboot its steady state superconducting tokamak, SST-1, on time to be showcased at the upcoming IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, reports the media platform The Better India.

Commissioned at the Institute for Plasma Research in 2013, the SST-1 experiment has produced plasma discharges up to ~ 500 ms. Experiments were halted after some small damage was detected in the tokamak's toroidal magnet system in December 2017.

Organized from 22 to 27 October 2018 by the Government of India in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, the 27th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference will be one of the year's highlights for the world fusion community, providing a platform for discussions around key physics and technology issues in fusion research.

Read about SST-1 on the website of "The Better India."

Find more about the 27th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (or pre-register online) here.

ITER job fair attracts locally
18 Jun 2018
In terms of local recruitment needs, the ITER Project is at an exceptional junction. At the same time as European Domestic Agency civil works contractors remain active on site, the ITER Organization is beginning to issue contracts related to the assembly and installation of components and systems inside of the completed buildings and technical areas.

All of these main contractors have employment offers to fill in a variety of areas. At a recruitment fair held on 14 June more than 500 jobs were on offer, as companies advertised for foremen, engineers, security specialists, welders, boilermakers, pipe-fitters, mechanics, shift supervisors, draftsmen and women, maintenance technicians and more.

If you live locally, you can see the full list of recruitment offers here.

The recruitment fair—advertising different types of French employment contracts—is organized annually by the Saint-Paul-lez-Durance employment association with the support of seven municipalities. For assignments at the ITER Organization, as directly employed staff, please see the ITER Organization website.

IAEA issues crowdsourcing challenge on fusion materials
18 Jun 2018
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued a challenge for data specialists from around the world to submit innovative ways to visualize, analyze and explore simulations of different materials that can be used to build fusion reactors.

Experts and self-taught enthusiasts are invited to analyze simulations of the damage that can be caused to the reactor wall by the energetic neutrons released by the fusion reaction. The contest leaves the nature of the software solutions open to enable novel approaches, but one or more of the following can be considered:

  • Novel software for visualizing the material damage represented by the simulation data files in a way that aids its qualitative and quantitative assessment;
  • New software tools to rapidly and reliably identify, classify and quantify new patterns and structures of particular kinds in the data sets;
  • Efficient algorithms to depict and summarize the statistical distribution of atom displacements and to analyze the effect of impact energy on this distribution.
Deadline for submission is 14 July 2018. The winner will be awarded with €5,000 and invited to the IAEA Headquarters in Vienna to present his or her ideas.

See the original article as well as detailed information about the challenge on the IAEA website.

Listen to this!
18 Jun 2018
In the latest episode of the science and engineering podcast series Omega Tau, producer Markus Völter speaks with Pierre Bauer, a superconductor engineer at ITER, about superconductivity and its uses.

The listener is first taken back in time to hear about the discovery of superconductivity in 1911, when scientists were trying to liquefy helium in their quest to understand the behavior of metals at very low temperatures. Today, superconductivity is associated with the high-performance magnets used in nuclear fusion reactors, in particle colliders, for magnetic levitation in modern train systems, and also for medical magnetic resonance imaging.

Superconductivity was first observed in mercury; since then, research has resulted in the identification of better materials for low-temperature conductors such as niobium, which is used in ITER's niobium-titanium and niobium-tin superconductors.

Völter and Bauer touch on many more issues related to superconductivity in this episode that lasts almost three hours. It is not the first time that ITER has featured prominently in the podcast series. In October 2014, Omega Tau spoke with ITER's Richard Pitts on the physics and the engineering challenges of the project.

Listen to the podcast with Pierre Bauer here.

Listen to the podcast with Richard Pitts here.

 

Enhancements underway at DIII-D tokamak
11 Jun 2018
One of the most flexible and highly instrumented fusion research reactors in the world is undergoing major enhancements that will pave the way to future fusion power plants.

The DIII-D National Fusion Facility is the largest magnetic fusion experiment in the United States. In May, work began on a series of machine enhancements that will make it possible to commence new studies of the physics of future fusion reactors. That will help scientists understand how to achieve high fusion power in the ITER and how to sustain such regimes indefinitely in the fusion power plants that will follow ITER.

The planned year-long activity will enhance DIII-D systems by adding increased and redirected particle beams and radio frequency systems to drive current and sustain the plasma in a so-called "steady state." The improvements will also expand capabilities with the installation of new microwave systems to explore burning-plasma-like conditions with high electron temperatures. This will allow researchers to explore how to achieve higher pressure and temperatures while increasing control of the plasma, conditions critical to sustained fusion operation.

See the recent press release on the General Atomics website.

Looking for resilent materials
11 Jun 2018
Scientists at Oxford University, in collaboration with the University of California Santa Barbara, are studying the impact of radiation on the properties of materials. Through their research, they hope to contribute to developing better, more resilient materials for nuclear fusion.

See this animation by Oxford Sparks to get an insight into how it is done.

European Domestic Agency: Interns wanted!
11 Jun 2018
Are you a university graduate in the field of nuclear engineering, physics, administration or communication? Do you want to put your academic experience into practice at ITER, the most ambitious international energy project? Then this traineeship may be for you. The European Domestic Agency for ITER is looking for physicists, engineers, lawyers, communicators and experts in human resources, finance and procurement who are interested in hands-on experience in an exciting international and multicultural environment.

The traineeship is paid and will last from between four to nine months starting in October 2018 at any of the three locations: Barcelona, Spain; ITER site (France); or Garching, Germany. The deadline for applications is 25 June 2018.

For more information and a complete list of opportunities click here.

EUROfusion seeks creative minds
04 Jun 2018
Are you a writer or an artist interested in fusion? Then the latest call of EUROfusion, the European consortium of national fusion research institutes, may be something for you. For the third time, EUROfusion invites creative minds to be inspired by all things fusion. Choose any of the eight provided topics and let your creativity on the loose. Winners will have their work published in the autumn edition of the magazine Fusion in Europe.

The eight topics include fusion as a must-have in the future energy mix; fusion as a benefit for you, us and society; fusion as a melting pot for different scientific fields; fusion as a driver of innovation, and a few others questions.

Consult EUROfusion to see all topics and more information on how to participate in this call. The deadline for the submission of proposals is 25 June.

ITER at the Sustainable Energy Week
28 May 2018
"Clean Energy for all Europeans" is the theme of this year's Sustainable Energy Week. Over 3,000 politicians, stakeholders, civil society representatives and the media will gather in Brussels from 4-8 June to share ideas and look for solutions to address Europe's future energy needs. The ITER Project, which aims at complementing, globally, renewable energy sources with clean, safe and abundant fusion energy, is the focus of an afternoon session on 7 June.

Titled "ITER and fusion: towards a new source of energy on Earth," the event is specifically geared towards the interested non-specialist public. Representatives of the European Commission, ITER, EUROfusion and Fusion for Energy will introduce ITER as one of the most important global energy projects, its vital role in securing mankind's future energy supply and the current status of its construction.

A wide range of events, meetings and activities provide many occasions to get updates on matters related to sustainable energy including e-mobility, energy transition in urban spaces, innovative technology and energy efficiency for industry. At the networking village visitors can enjoy an energy fair, energy talks on topics related to the clean energy transition and an energy lab where ten projects will pitch in front of a panel of experts.

For more information on the Sustainable Energy Week, and to register, please visit the website.

JET tokamak warming up
28 May 2018
The first plasma pulse for almost 18 months took place inside of the JET tokamak in early May.

The machine—the largest and most powerful tokamak in operation today—has been undergoing a revamp to act as a testbed for ITER technologies and plasma operating scenarios. JET is now equipped with an ITER-like beryllium and tungsten wall to study material-plasma interactions, additional heating power, and the ability to handle tritium. Experiments with tritium at JET—the first since the 1990s—will act as an important "dress rehearsal" in preparation for fusion operation at ITER.

Although not a full fusion plasma, achieving the 1.2 mega amp pulse is a key part of completing the JET restart and getting ready for further commissioning of the machine. The first experiments are expected to take place this year.

Read the full article on the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy's website.

Steven Cowley to head Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
21 May 2018
Steven Cowley, a theoretical physicist and international authority on fusion energy, has been named director of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), effective July 1.

Cowley has served as president of Corpus Christi College and professor of physics at the University of Oxford since 2016. From 2008 through 2016, he was chief executive officer of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and head of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, which includes the Joint European Torus (JET) and Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) fusion facilities.

During his tenure at Culham, Cowley expanded and strengthened relations with other fusion programs in Europe and around the world, and served in key advisory roles for the U.K., U.S. and European governments.

As director of PPPL, Cowley will be responsible for managing all aspects of the laboratory, including its performance in science, engineering, operations, project management and strategic planning. He will lead PPPL's scientific and technical programs in fusion energy science and technology, as well as broader investigations in plasma science, and provide leadership to the U.S. and world fusion energy efforts.

 Read the original article on the PPPL website.

An app for plasma physicists
21 May 2018
San Diego-based General Atomics (GA) has published a new app to help physicists work out the characteristics of plasmas on the fly. Called Plasmatica, it takes up to seven basic input parameters—ranging from magnetic field to electron temperature to ion mass factor—and outputs many fundamental properties of the plasma. The parameters are helpful to researchers because they describe intrinsic plasma behaviors, e.g., how often particles will collide with each other.

"Before this, most of us just would have written a little program on our computers to do these calculations, and in fact a bunch of us have them," said David Pace, the GA physicist who spurred the development of Plasmatica. "We thought it would be nice to give back to the research community by creating a standardized app that everyone can use when they're not at their computers. It's been exciting to get some initial feedback that is guiding us to a new round of improvements."

GA operates the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, the largest magnetic fusion facility operating in the U.S. and a world-renowned research center for plasma physics. Research time on DIII-D is extremely valuable—the facility can accept only about one out of every five experimental proposals—so having those calculations accessible on a mobile device can save precious minutes when researchers are trying to line up the next experiment.

The app, which incorporates two formularies commonly used by plasma physicists, has been tested by researchers and is getting solid reviews. Plasmatica is available for free in both the Android and Apple app stores.

Tricky tungsten, cool divertors and more
21 May 2018
The first Fusion in Europe of 2018 has been released. This quarterly magazine, published by the European consortium EUROfusion, keeps readers abreast of the faces, facilities and feats of the very dynamic fusion research community in Europe.

The latest issue offers articles on the experimental campaign underway at WEST (France), the 3D printing of small tungsten components, and plans for a neutron source oriented to DEMO (the machine after ITER).

You can read or download Fusion in Europe here.  

Online courses on plasma physics
11 May 2018
The Swiss Plasma Center at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has updated its Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) on plasma physics. Both courses are taught by renowned experts in the field and offer participants the opportunity to acquire basic knowledge about plasma physics and its applications.

Through four-week course on plasma physics you will acquire: a basic knowledge of plasma physics and the different models used to describe plasmas; an understanding of how to numerically simulate complex plasma dynamics; and a basic introduction to MATLAB programming through introductory videos and exercises.

The second, five-week course covers plasma physics applications in astrophysics, industry, medicine, nuclear fusion and laser-plasma interaction, and aims to highlight the challenge of developing fusion as an energy source, plasma applications in society, and the importance of plasma in space and astrophysics.

Visit the Swiss Plasma Center website for more information. Enrolment is continuous. 

Prediction of tritium transport to support breeding blanket design
11 May 2018
ITER will procure the tritium fuel necessary for its expected 20-year lifetime from the global inventory. But for DEMO, the next step on the way to commercial fusion power, no sufficient external source of tritium exists. The successful development of tritium breeding—that is the generation within the fusion reactor of tritium fuel—is essential for the future of fusion electricity.

ITER will provide a unique opportunity to test mockups of breeding blankets, called Test Blanket Modules (TBM), in a real fusion environment. Six different tritium breeding concepts will be tested in dedicated ''ports'' in the ITER vacuum vessel.

Development is underway on two European test blanket systems for ITER. As part of the program, the European Domestic Agency is collaborating with Spanish firms CIEMAT and Empresarios Agrupados on a computer code that will predict the transport of tritium through the different components and materials of the test blanket system in ITER. Findings will contribute to the design of a breeding blanket for tritium self-sufficiency in DEMO.

Read the full article on the European Union Domestic Agency website.

--I.Ricapito manages the development of the computing code used to predict the tritium transport in the European test blanket systems.

3,000 tonnes of raw material procured for Europe's vacuum vessel sectors
04 May 2018
All the steel material needed for the fabrication of the five European-procured sectors of the ITER vacuum vessel sectors has now been received by the European consortium. Five sub-contractors participated in the delivery of the latest batch—Acciaierie Valbruna (Italy), Forgiatura A. Vienna (Italy), Industeel (France), Rolf Kind GmbH (Germany) and ThyssenKrupp (Germany).

In all, vacuum vessel fabrication in Europe has required 1,120 tonnes of plates and 1,900 tonnes of forgings (metal blocks formed into various shapes through hot pressing techniques). A special grade of high quality stainless steel—exceptionally strong, corrosion-resistant, and weldable—has been chosen for this critical ITER component.

Read the full report on the European Domestic Agency website.

US Congressman pens pro-fusion op-ed
03 May 2018
Representative Lamar Smith, Chair of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee*, has penned a recent op-ed in RealClearPolicy that urges US policy makers to uphold its commitment to ITER and to fully fund the fusion research program at the Department of Energy.

"To maintain America's global standing as the leader in science, we must meet our international commitments and support this basic research that will lead to transformative clean energy technologies."

Underfunding ITER, which he describes as a "critical step on the path to achieving commercial fusion energy," would jeopardize American leadership in fusion science. "...We cannot afford to lose our seat at the table. Nor can we expect to receive international support for our domestically built projects if we do not honour our international obligations."

Read the full op-ed here.

* The House Science, Space and Technology Committee oversees the Department of Energy's Office of Science, which includes the Fusion Energy Sciences program.

ITER satellite: torus assembly completed
23 Apr 2018
The Satellite Tokamak Program, JT-60SA, is a major modification of the existing JT-60U tokamak at the Naka Fusion Institute in Japan. Designed to support ITER, and to investigate how best to optimize the design and operation of fusion power plants built after ITER, the project is part of the Broader Approach Agreement signed between Japan and Euratom. First Plasma is planned in 2020.

Advanced assembly of the modified tokamak is underway now. The last vacuum vessel sector, pre-assembled with toroidal field coils and thermal shielding, was recently installed to complete the 360-degree torus.

See photos of the operation on the European Domestic Agency website.

Young plasma physicists to be honoured in Prague
23 Apr 2018
Every year, the Plasma Physics Division of the European Physical Society (EPS) grants up to four prizes to young scientists from the 38 EPS member states. The prize, which was created in 2005, is awarded for outstanding research achievements associated with PhD studies in the field of plasma physics. 

This year's four winners will be honoured during the opening ceremony of the 45th Conference on Plasma Physics, EPS 2018, which takes place in Prague, Czech Republic, from 2-6 July. In addition, the prize winning young physicists are given the opportunity to present their work at the conference.

One of last year's winners, Toon Weyens, is currently working at ITER under the Principality of Monaco/ITER Postdoctoral Fellowship program which supports fusion-related research efforts of early-career scientists. Weyens received the prestigious EPS PhD award in 2017 for his study of a key aspect of toroidal plasma stability, the effects of non-axisymmetric fields on peeling-ballooning stability.

Fusion pursuit (not so trivial)
23 Apr 2018
A group of young fusion enthusiasts seems to be the first who managed to put the Sun in a box. In this case, though, the box is quite literal ... and contains a board game they invented to make learning about ITER easy and entertaining.

What will the ITER Tokamak weigh? What is the function of the breeding blankets? And at what temperature does the fusion reaction take place? Players are meant to work in teams to advance in this ITER version of Trivial Pursuit by answering these kinds of questions.

Just like with the original Trivial Pursuit, there are several categories of questions: design and technical aspects; thermonuclear physics; manufacturing and construction; safety, quality, security and regulations; project management; and general issues. Correctly answered questions are rewarded with small plastic tokens representing key structural components of the ITER machine.

As the game progresses, players collect the components to assemble a small 3D-printed model. The team that first completes its mini tokamak wins the game. And along the way all players gain a basic understanding of nuclear fusion and the ITER Project.

The board game was developed by a group of employees from Assystem, one of the companies in the consortium ENGAGE, the architect/engineer for ITER construction. Calling themselves Young Generation Fusion, they want to raise awareness about fusion energy and ITER by creating projects that attract the attention of a wide audience.

In April, they had the chance to present ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot with a copy of "Sun in a Box." They also present their creations at trade fairs and conferences.

--From left to right, Young Generation Fusioneers Eric Kruger, Clarisse Thouzeau, Guillaume Merriaux-Mansart and Gregory Thibault (Sebastien Lonjon and Camille Taberlet are not shown).

55th Culham Plasma Physics Summer School
16 Apr 2018
The 55th Culham Plasma Physics Summer School is open to applications.

The school will cover fundamental plasma physics, as well as important topics in fusion, astrophysical, laser and low temperature plasmas. Lecturers are drawn from the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) together with leading European universities. All are renowned experts in their fields.

For more details and to apply please visit: https://culhamsummerschool.org.uk/

Discount for early registrations before 15 May.

The deadline for applications is 25 May.

Fusion pioneer Peter Thonemann dies at 100
13 Apr 2018
Australian-born physicist Peter Thonemann died on 10 February 2018 at the age of 100. Thonemann was the leader of the ZETA fusion project when in 1958 it was famously—and wrongly—declared that it had achieved nuclear fusion.

Thonemann, whose family descended from German emigrants, was born in 1917 in Melbourne, Australia. To pursue an academic career in physics, he moved to Oxford, England, in 1944 and became one of the early researchers in nuclear fusion. As head of fusion research at Oxford and later at Harwell, England, Thonemann played a key role in the Zeta fusion project at the time when it made international headlines.

In January 1958, the announcement that the Zeta toroidal fusion device had achieved nuclear fusion was greeted with great enthusiasm. Less than four months later, the British scientists leading the project had to retract their earlier pronouncements. Although fusion research initially suffered from this setback, the Zeta episode helped drive the secrecy out of nuclear fusion research and create the foundation for scientific cooperation in this field across national boundaries. (See also the recent Newsline article on the Zeta affair)

Thonemann moved on to become deputy director of the Culham Laboratory in the mid-1960s, today home of JET, the Joint European Torus. A few years later, in 1968, he became professor for physics at what is today the University of Swansea, Wales. Late in life, Thonemann turned his scientific curiosity to biology and conducted research on the E. coli bacterium.

Please read the full obituary of The Sydney Morning Herald here.

ITER goes manga
09 Apr 2018
Taiyô Tenno is a young Japanese student on a world tour of "art masterpieces"; Soléane is "a scientist at heart," presumably French, who speaks perfect Japanese. They meet at Cézanne's workshop in Aix-en-Provence and soon find themselves seated at the terrace of Les Deux Garçons, the town's most elegant café.

Soléane speaks Japanese because her work in "energy research" implies a lot of "professional dealings with Japan." Taiyô Tenno is impressed, especially when Soléane explains that her work is about "duplicating the energy-generating process in the Sun and stars"...

The first manga on ITER—"A small sun on Earth"—has just been published by ITER Japan and is available in Japanese, French and English.

Visit this website to download the manga.

ITER well represented at Zvenigorod conference
09 Apr 2018
The International Zvenigorod Conference on Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion is an annual rendezvous near Moscow for fusion research specialists from Russia and abroad. For one week in April, recent achievements in high and low temperature plasma research, the field of controlled fusion, and the development of plasma and beam technologies are presented through lectures, short talks and poster presentations.

Russian participation in the ITER Project was reported at the "ITER Project: Step to future energy" portion of the program under the direction of Anatoly Krasilnikov, director of the Russian Domestic Agency. Representatives of the research centres and the industrial companies involved in the procurement of ITER systems and components were present to report on the challenging technical specifications of the packages under Russian responsibility and the benefits of participation in ITER for the Russian research infrastructure overall.

More on the annual conference here.

--ITER Russia

All in a week's work for an intern
26 Mar 2018
Drawing inspiration from the robotic tasks that will be faced at ITER during installation and maintenance activities, the annual ITER Robots contest challenges students of different ages to imagine, design, and program Lego robots. Launched in 2012 by Agence Iter France and the ITER Organization, the program is growing every year.

As Newsline reported last June, the 2017 ITER Robots competition involved 600 students from 27 schools organized into 46 teams. This year, the competition will expand to about 70 teams and also offer a new program—ITER Robots Junior—for primary age students in 4th, 5th and 6th grade (12 additional teams). And who better to help design the new junior competition than 14-year-old Camylle Jordan, who spent one week as an intern in ITER's Remote Handling Section.

According to Jean-Pierre Martins, the ITER remote handling engineer who supervised Camylle, "she solved every issue she encountered in a pragmatic manner." In addition to becoming familiar with the complexity of the ITER Project, Camylle had to adapt her programming skills to work with a Thymio robot and to learn the basics of SolidWorks ®, a Computer Assisted Design tool.

The young intern left the ITER engineers impressed with her efficiency and confidence. She successfully tested the proposed curriculum and competition design, proactively suggesting and demonstrating ways to improve the robot mission. She participated in the official kick-off meeting of the ITER Robots Junior challenge, interacting with people from ITER, Agence Iter France and the French education system (Education Nationale). And she found time to fit in a tour of the ITER worksite and virtual reality room, and to give an on-camera Facebook interview to student journalists.

Most importantly, she documented her progress systematically, keeping a logbook of written records, photos, and videos, to ensure the contribution of her workweek at ITER would not be lost.

ITER chief: I won't live to see benefits of fusion, but I will help us get there
17 Mar 2018
Bernard Bigot, Director-General of the world's biggest nuclear fusion project, tells Brussels-based Science|Business the perpetually out-of-reach energy source is finally in sight—so long as Trump does not scale back US involvement.

Read the article published on 15 March here.

Deep learning improves plasma disruption prediction
15 Mar 2018
A research team at Princeton University has succeeded in significantly improving the quality of disruption predictions for a plasma in a tokamak fusion device through deep learning.

The team led by plasma physicist William Tang had access to the database of the Joint European Torus (JET) tokamak to demonstrate the potential of deep learning and neural networks in the analysis of large amounts of plasma disruption data. They fed more than a half-petabyte of information into their fusion recurrent neural nets (FRNN) deep learning software.

Through GPU-accelerated computing—i.e., the use of a graphic processing unit together with a CPU—disruption prediction improved dramatically in accuracy and speed. The Princeton team also demonstrated the scalability to over thousands of even more advanced GPUs.

According to Tang, this development holds a huge potential for accelerating scientific discovery through deep learning for fusion research.

Read the full article here.

MIT launches new intiatives in fusion research
09 Mar 2018
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has just released plans for a number of initiatives that will broaden its engagement in fusion research.

MIT has been a long-standing player in fusion research, receiving support primarily from the US Department of Energy that has included funding in three major experiments at MIT's Plasma Fusion and Science Center (PFSC). The last of these—the Alcator C-Mod tokamak—ended operations in 2016 after 23 years and approximately 33,000 plasma shots.

Now, in a renewed approach, researchers at MIT will be working with a newly formed company, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, to combine the experience of a well-established lab with the more nimble and longer-term financing perspectives from the private sector.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems is an independent, for-profit company created by former MIT staff and students for the accelerated commercialization of fusion energy.

Joint teams will be working to develop a new class of high temperature superconducting magnets, followed by the conception and construction of a compact 100 MW fusion experiment called SPARC, and finally a larger demonstration power plant. 

Commonwealth Fusion Systems has obtained $50 million in funding from the Italian energy company Eni, which is also a founding member of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI). Eni has also announced funding to the order of $2 million per year for PSFC's newly created Laboratory for Innovation in Fusion Technologies, which will focus on cutting-edge solutions for some of the challenges on the road to a steady-state fusion reactor.

Read more about the new initiatives on the MIT website.

Monaco-ITER Fellowships: apply by 1 March
26 Feb 2018
If your PhD was awarded after 1 January 2015—or you are about to obtain one—you are eligible to apply for a Monaco/ITER Postdoctoral Fellowship.

The Fellowship Program is recruiting now for two-year terms beginning autumn 2018.

Since 2008, 25 young scientists and engineers have been able to participate directly in ITER, working on cutting-edge issues in science and technology with some of the leading scientists and engineers in each domain. The principal aim of the Research Fellowships, which are funded by the Principality of Monaco under a Partnership Agreement that was renewed in early 2018, is the development of excellence in research in fusion science and technology within the ITER framework.

The deadline for application is 1 March. All information can be obtained here.

Using electron cyclotron heating to stabilize the plasma
26 Feb 2018
In a recent report in Nuclear Fusion, an international team of researchers outlines an approach for using electron cyclotron heating to control instabilities known as "neoclassical tearing modes" that can cause magnetic islands to grow in, and perturb, the plasma.

Lead physicist Francesca Poli of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) worked with two of her colleagues and researchers from the ITER Organization, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Germany, and the Institute of Plasma Physics in Italy, to describe an approach that for the first time simulates the plasma, the magnetic islands and the feedback control from the electron cyclotron waves.

The current from the electron cyclotron waves (see related article in Newsline) has to be matched with the magnetic island. The simulations performed help to determine the maximum misalignment that can be tolerated and under which conditions experiments should be run.

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

Robotics developed for fusion to serve other applications
21 Feb 2018
An institute created at the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER) to research remote maintenance technology for ITER has now been spun-off as a separate entity.

The Dutch Remote Handling Study Center (RHSC), founded in 2011 in collaboration with the company Heemskerk Innovative Technology, will continue to carry out tasks for ITER through the European Domestic Agency.

But its experience developing maintenance procedures for ITER components using remotely controlled robots will now be applied to a wider scope of applications, including industrial maintenance and health care.

Read the news on the DIFFER website.

MIT graduate student contributes to the understanding of plasma heat transport
21 Feb 2018
A team led by MIT professor Anne White, Cecil and Ida Green Associate Professor in the Nuclear Science and Engineering Department, and Pablo Rodriguez Fernandez (pictured), a graduate student in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, has conducted studies that offer a new take on the complex physics of plasma heat transport, and point toward more robust models of fusion plasma behaviour. The results of their work appear this week in the journal Physical Review Letters, in which Rodriguez Fernandez serves as first author.

To make fusion energy a reality, scientists must harness fusion plasma, a fiery gaseous maelstrom in which radioactive particles react to generate heat for electricity. But the turbulence of fusion plasma can confront researchers with unruly behaviours that confound attempts to make predictions and develop models. In experiments over the past two decades, an especially vexing problem has emerged: In response to deliberate cooling at its edges, fusion plasma inexplicably undergoes abrupt increases in central temperature.

These counterintuitive temperature spikes, which fly against the physics of heat transport models, have not found an explanation—until now.

Read the detailed account on the website of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center.

Spinoffs from the science at the heart of the stars
19 Feb 2018
"Many basic science discoveries, while important by themselves and foundational in their fields, also yield spinoff applications or enabling technologies not envisioned by the scientists doing the original work. This is what makes investment in science like fusion energy research so powerful—the impact extends well beyond the laboratory."

This statement prefaces a new brochure issued by the US Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (Department of Energy) on the many areas of science and technology—modern electronics, lighting, communication, manufacturing, transportation—that have benefitted directly from research into fusion.

You can download the brochure here.

Not just for smart phone batteries
09 Feb 2018
The chemical element lithium may just have found itself a new application. Scientists at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) have found that lithium powder can reduce periodic instabilities in plasma when used to coat tungsten surfaces in fusion devices.

These instabilities are known as edge-localized modes (ELMs) and occur at the outer parts of the fusion plasma. ELMs develop regularly when the plasma enters what is known as high-confinement mode, or H-mode, which holds heat within the plasma more efficiently. ELMs can damage the divertor, a plasma-facing component that extracts heat and ash produced by the fusion reaction, and cause fusion reactions to fizzle.

The researchers also found that it became easier to eliminate ELMs as the experiments progressed, possibly requiring less lithium as time went on.

The results cause physicists to be confident that these techniques could also reduce ELMs in larger fusion devices that were designed to be compatible with lithium.

Read the full article on the PPPL website here.

US "Burning Plasma Committee" visits ITER
05 Feb 2018
February at ITER opened with a high-stakes visit from the Committee on A Strategic Plan for U.S. Burning Plasma Research. The Committee, operating under the auspices of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, has been charged with reviewing the overall state of magnetic confinement fusion research in the United States. A key outcome of the review is to be a recommended strategy for going forward—with or without ITER—in a way that preserves the US status as a leader in burning plasma research.

The Committee publicly released its interim report on 21 December 2017.

A new page for ITER news
05 Feb 2018
The main webpage for ITER news has evolved. Follow this address—https://www.iter.org/news—to find all the latest social media posts, announcements, articles, photos and videos.

The page serves as an aggregator; from there you can consult the full archive of press articles on ITER, scroll through photo galleries, dig more deeply into the Newsline archive for a research topic, or click on our live site cam.

Make it your bookmark today!

Planning for a fusion-relevant neutron source
29 Jan 2018
Spain and Croatia have announced they will join forces in preparation to host DONES, the DEMO Oriented Neutron Source facility. The specialized installation will help scientists to test materials in an environment of neutron irradiation similar to that of a demonstration fusion reactor (DEMO), the intermediate step from ITER to a commercial fusion reactor.

A scientific collaboration framework between Japan and Europe—the Broader Approach—is helping to pave the way to DONES by validating key technological concepts. The engineering validation and engineering design activities of IFMIF (the International Fusion Materials Facility) aim at producing a detailed, complete and fully integrated engineering design of fusion-relevant neutron source by validating the continuous and stable operation of prototypes for each IFMIF subsystem.

Research into materials with neutron-resistant properties is one of the key tasks laid out in the European Roadmap, Europe's guiding document to addressing the scientific and technological challenges on the way to adding fusion energy to Europe's future energy mix.

It has not yet been decided where DONES will be located. For Europe, Spain and Croatia have now agreed to propose Granada, Spain, as host. Should this not be possible for technical reasons, the project would be hosted in Moslavačka Gora, Croatia. A technical group of experts from both countries that evaluated both sides declared the Granada site as fully operational and acknowledged that construction works could start immediately.

Read the full article on the European Domestic Agency website.

UK industry invited to seize opportunities
29 Jan 2018
Two months after the announcement of a £86 million government investment in the UK's nuclear fusion research program, the UK's Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) met with more than 80 industry stakeholders on 16 January in Oxford to present opportunities for the nuclear industry to get involved and secure major contracts with ITER.

The government investment will support the UKAEA's plan to build a National Fusion Technology Platform at its Culham Science Centre. The platform will consist of two centres of excellence which, according to the Head of the UKAEA, Ian Chapman, would help in making commercial fusion a reality:

- the Hydrogen-3 Advanced Technology (H3AT) centre to research how to process and store tritium, with a direct link to ITER's development;
- and the Fusion Technology Facilities (FTF) to develop thermal hydraulic tests for components under fusion conditions. 

Both centres open up opportunities for British industry. Partnering with UKAEA will support industry in preparing to bid for forthcoming multi-million-pound ITER contracts. 

Read the full article on the UKAEA website here.

 

 

 

H-mode unveiled
29 Jan 2018
While ITER takes shape, plasma physicists continue searching for answers to some rather tough questions. What causes a plasma to go from a weakly confined, turbulent state to a more defined and calmer state which is necessary for fusion to occur? Answering this question, scientists from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, the University of California and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology join forces to simulate tokamak plasmas.

With the help of a supercomputer located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) called Titan, the research team uncovered for the first time the basic physics behind a plasma's transition into the high-confinement or H-mode.

Future simulations will study the transition of a plasma into H-mode at ITER scale. An issue of crucial importance is the right balance between the core temperature of a plasma and the temperature at its edge, which will have an effect on the size of the plasma.

These simulations are of unprecedented scale. Only with such high-performance computing resources such as Titan involving over 18,000 graphic processing units (GPUs) and close to 300,000 central processing units (CPUs), can problems of such great scientific complexity and importance be addressed.

See the full article on the ORNL website here.

 

"A global response to a global challenge"
22 Jan 2018
Early January, ITER's Director-General spoke with Foro Nuclear, the Spanish nuclear industry forum. The exchange covered the challenge of leading a multicultural project, the critical phase ahead as ITER begins assembly activities, and Bernard Bigot's conviction that there is nothing more exciting, more motivating, than contributing to a project that could change the course of civilization for hundreds of thousands of years.

Excerpts below

On managing one of the world's largest research projects:

I accepted the Council's offer at a crucial moment in ITER history, when the project was entering into manufacturing and preparations for assembly. This new phase required a new organization—one tailored to meet the double challenge of delivering an installation that is both a research facility and an industrial facility.  What we needed at that point and need even more today was integration.

ITER is a complex structure, with a central team here in France and seven "domestic agencies" emanating from the seven ITER Members that are responsible for the in-kind procurement of machine components and installation systems. To achieve this integration, we needed a clear, centralized decision-making process under the authority of the Director-General. This being established and accepted by all, we could move on, as "One ITER," to promote and establish a project culture based on shared values of excellence, adherence to commitments, adherence to schedule and budget, and careful and effective use of public funds. And all the while making safety and quality our highest priority.

On striving for excellence in a multicultural environment:

How do we achieve harmony and efficiency? Through mutual respect and the understanding that each culture has its own work habits, traditions and "best practices." However at the end of the day, after well documented debates, decisions have to be taken and implemented by all. The global world we live in has not erased national particularisms. But instead of seeing this as a problem, we see it as an asset: we are building a project culture in a way that takes advantage of the diversity of these "best practices" to achieve an optimal result. 

On considering a job at ITER:

I've often said that, when joining ITER you symbolically abandon your nationality. You become Iternational... Working at ITER is very demanding but it is also very rewarding. Can you think of something more exciting, more motivating, than contributing to a project that can change the course of civilization for hundreds of thousands of years?

On the importance of fusion

My conviction is that in the second half of this century, beyond 2060, we will have accumulated enough knowledge and experience to create a large fusion industry—just like in the past decades we have created an oil, gas or nuclear fission industry. But like with any of these industries, the decision will be both technical and political and rest in the individual governments' and investors' hands.

Follow these links to read the article in English or Spanish.

Tune in to the ITER channel!
22 Jan 2018
Bored with the Kardashians? Not interested in your regular TV program? You can now tune in to a new channel that will allow you to follow—in real time!—the construction of the Tokamak Complex.

Streamed from a video camera mounted 60 metres above platform level, the footage gives you an eagle eye's view of the ongoing activities in the Holy of Holies of the ITER Project —day and night, any day, any hour.

Follow this link to the ITER homepage.

WEST joins family of divertor tokamaks
22 Jan 2018
On 18 December 2017, the current was raised in the divertor coils and the very first X-point plasma was obtained in the WEST tokamak (France).

The current was raised in limiter configuration up to 500 kA and controlled during a couple of seconds, while the divertor coils entered into action and an ITER-like configuration was reached.

The WEST project consists in transforming the former Tore Supra tokamak in order to extend its long pulse capability and test ITER's divertor technology. The implementation of a full tungsten, actively cooled divertor with plasma-facing units that are representative of ITER's divertor targets will allow scientists and engineers to address the risks both in terms of industrial-scale manufacturing and operation.

Read all about the test campaign underway in WEST's December 2017 newsletter here.

L'Oréal-UNESCO Fellowships For Women in Science
17 Jan 2018
The L'Oréal Foundation, in partnership with UNESCO and the French Academy of Sciences, is calling for applications to its 2018 "For Women in Science" Fellowship program.

Thirty young and talented female scientists at the doctoral or postdoctoral level will be selected this year in France. Candidates must be specialized in Life or Physical Sciences, currently work or study in France, and demonstrate academic excellence and original research. 

The application deadline is 4 April 2018.

For full information, please see the website in English and French.

Fusion documentary "Let there be light" available for rent/purchase
08 Jan 2018
EyeSteelFilm's 90-minute documentary on fusion and ITER—Let there be light—is now available worldwide for rent or purchase on the Vimeo platform. For audiences in North America it is also available on iTunes for purchase and on Amazon Prime for rent or purchase.

Subtitled ''The 100 Year Journey to Fusion,'' the documentary shows work underway around the world at both ends of the fusion spectrum—from the giant ITER Project to the warehouse-based startup. It has had success at film festivals in North America and Europe since its launch in early 2017 and major international broadcast stations are showing interest. The European culture channel Arte is set to show the documentary in the coming months.

In early January 2018, "Let there be light" was listed as one of the top ten Canadian films in 2017.

The documentary is now available for rent or purchase worldwide on Vimeo.com in English or French. In North America it is also available for purchase on iTunes and for purchase or rent on Amazon Prime, both in English.

Next stop: Europe-Japan tokamak in Naka
08 Jan 2018
The JT-60SA tokamak is part of the Broader Approach agreement signed between Japan and Euratom to complement the ITER Project and accelerate the realization of fusion energy. The JT-60SA tokamak represents an upgrade of a previous tokamak at the Naka facility, designed to support the operation of ITER. It will investigate how best to optimize the design and operation of fusion power plants built after ITER. First Plasma is planned for 2020, at the end of a six-year assembly and commissioning period.

In the latest news of progress, 12 cryostat vessel sectors manufactured in Spain are now ready for transport to Naka. Heavy frames and robust plastic and tarpaulin wrapping will ensure adequate protection during transport of the sectors, each measuring approximately 11 metres in height, and during storage in Japan. (Storage is required as the elements will arrive ahead of their scheduled assembly in the JT-60SA Torus Hall.)

Along with the completed cryostat vessel sectors the shipment also includes heavy lifting equipment. In total the shipment weighs about 322 tonnes. It is scheduled to arrive at the Hitachi port in Japan by mid-January 2018.

See the full article here and related information here.

2017

You've got mail: the ASDEX Upgrade Letter
22 Dec 2017
The ASDEX Upgrade at the Max-Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching, Germany, is one of three medium-sized tokamaks which are part of the EUROfusion program. In conjunction with JET it provides important input to the ITER Project.

The 18th issue of the ASDEX Upgrade Letter provides the latest news in three topics. The first presents results of research on plasma stability, in particular on instabilities in the plasma edge. The second item describes the use of a newly upgraded core turbulence microwave diagnostic system, known as correlation electron cyclotron emission (CECE). Thanks to the CECE, plasma physicists will have a better understanding of turbulence in fusion plasmas.

A third contribution focuses on alternative power exhaust concepts for the APDEX Upgrade tokamak. The extraction of the power produced in a future reactor poses one of the challenges in fusion research. In the ASDEX Upgrade the lower divertor is normally used for this purpose; now, scientists are investigating alternative configurations with a new, modified upper divertor. The design phase has already started and first hardware installation is expected in 2020/2021.

The Letter also honours the young IPP physicist Benedikt Geiger who was awarded the Hans Werner Osthoff Plasma Physics Prize 2016. The prize honours outstanding achievements in the field of plasma physics.

For more information and access to the ASDEX Upgrade Letter click here.

Register now: 2018 Kudowa Summer School
22 Dec 2017
The Polish Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion (IPPLM) invites young scientists to attend the 14th Kudowa Summer School. The summer school, under the motto "Towards fusion energy," will be held in Kudowa-Zdrój, in the Lower Silesia region in southwest Poland, from 4 to 8 June 2018.

The school provides courses on fusion energy, plasma experiments and related technology. It will mainly look at laser fusion and laser-matter interaction studies. Topics include plasma basics and fusion energy; inertial confinement fusion; magnetic confinement fusion; plasma-diagnostics; and technology.

Registration is open until 20 March 2018. Interested participants are encouraged to give presentations. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 8 February 2018.

For all related information please go to the Kudowa Summer School website.

Artificial intelligence and supercomputers
21 Dec 2017
One of the big challenges in developing fusion energy is controlling the plasma. Disruptions of the burning plasma can halt the fusion reaction and damage the walls of the fusion device. Scientists therefore are keen to learn how to predict plasma disruptions.

Researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) employ artificial intelligence to improve predictive capability. They developed predictive software, the Fusion Recurrent Neural Network (FRNN) code, which is a form of what is called "deep learning"—a powerful version of modern machine-learning software. (Research team: William Tang, to the left; Eliot Feibush; and Alexey Svyatkovskiy, seated)

Drawing from data of the JET facility in the UK, the team has demonstrated the tool's ability to predict disruptions more accurately than previous methods. Turning their attention now to ITER, the team aims to improve the correct prediction of disruptions and reduce the number of false alarms.

The deep learning software is also a challenge for computing hardware. Several tests with the FRNN on modern powerful supercomputing devices, so-called GPU clusters, in the United States, Europe and Asia showed promising results.

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

New era in plasma and fusion research
20 Dec 2017
At the joint meeting of the 26th International Toki Conference (ITC) and the 11th Asia Plasma and Fusion Association (APFA) conference—held from 5 to 8 December in Toki, Japan—ITER Science & Operations Department head David Campbell gave a plenary talk on ITER progress.

It was the occasion to recognize the many contributions of Dr Campbell to fusion research over the course of his career. The chair of the international program committee, Yutaka Kamada, and the chair of the international advisory committee, Yasuhiko Takeiri, both presented tributes. Dr Campbell retired in December from the ITER Organization.

The theme this year of the ITC meeting was "A new era in plasma and fusion research." The launch of deuterium experiments in Japan's Large Helical Device, and the first experimental results, were highlighted at the meeting, which also brought together academics and researchers from Japan, China, Korea and India in the context of the biennial APFA meeting. Three hundred participants in all took part in the four-day event. 

UK government invests in nuclear fusion research
11 Dec 2017
The UK's nuclear fusion research program can expect a big financial boost. A £86 million government investment—announced last week—will benefit the UK's Atomic Energy Authority's (UKAEA's) Culham Science Centre and its plan to build a National Fusion Technology Platform.

The platform will comprise two centres of excellence:

-        The Hydrogen-3 Advanced Technology (H3AT) centre to research how to process and store tritium;

-        The Fusion Technology Facilities to conduct tests on prototype components under conditions they would experience in future fusion reactors.

The new national fusion technology platform will open in 2020. It will enhance the UK's expertise in critical areas of fusion research and help British industry to secure contracts from ITER and other global fusion projects. It will also provide a powerful signal of the UK's intent to continue its participation in international science collaboration after leaving the European Union.

Taking a longer term view, the platform's two centres will help the UK to prepare the grounds for the first nuclear fusion power plants.

The Head of the UKAEA, Ian Chapman, said that this latest development means that: "...the UK will be at the forefront of developing fusion and bringing cleaner energy to the world."

Read the full article here.

Submissions wanted for SOFT innovation prize 2018
08 Dec 2017
The starting shot for the 2018 SOFT Innovation Prize has sounded. The prize is a feature of the Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT), a biennial conference organized by the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA). It rewards outstanding researchers or companies who find new physics or technology solutions to address the challenges of fusion, with the potential of wider application.

The competition is open to researchers, research teams and companies from around the world. Anyone interested to enter the competition needs to apply through the Research and Innovation portal of the European Commission; the deadline for submissions is 8 March 2018. An independent jury of experts in technology transfer will select the three winners and the award ceremony will take place as part of the 30th SOFT conference taking place in Giardini Naxos, Sicily, Italy, from 17-21 September.

Last year's winners were awarded the prize for a novel type of high temperature superconductor cable based on REBCO tape material, a new membrane technology to produce ultra-pure hydrogen and a new virtual reality software technology to improve radioprotection.

SOFT is an important conference in the area of fusion technology and research in Europe. It attracts over 800 scientists, engineers, industry representatives and exhibitors from around the world.

Read the full article here.

IPP scientist receives "Nuclear Fusion" Award
06 Dec 2017
Physicist François Ryter, of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching, Germany, has received the 2017 Nuclear Fusion Award.

The annual award recognizes exceptional work that has appeared in Nuclear Fusion, and that has had the greatest influence in the two years following publication.

Ryter was honoured for his 2014 paper on experiments in Garching's ASDEX Upgrade tokamak. "Delivering an outstanding piece of work on L—H transition physics, Ryter et al present a systematic and rigorous experimental study revealing the key role of the ion heat flux at the plasma edge. This explains the nonlinear dependence of the L—H threshold power on density and enables the derivation of a general expression for the density minimum. This is an important physics finding, with implications for ITER operation," the award panel announced.

See a full report on the IPP website.

A birthday celebration in Barcelona
04 Dec 2017
"Few projects in the world combine such ambition, cutting-edge science and technology, and energy for future generations."

With these words Johannes Schwemmer, the Director of the European Domestic Agency, opened the 10-year anniversary celebration of Europe's involvement in ITER on 30 November.

European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, Miguel Arias Cañete, went on to highlight the human capital behind this one-of-kind project and praised "the work of so-many scientists and engineers, and the fact that countries, industries and research centres are working together to translate a common vision into a reality." The Mayor of the city of Barcelona, Ada Colau, explained that it was "an honour to host the European Agency and this was also proof of Barcelona's commitment to science and innovation." For Spain's Secretary of State for Research, Development and Innovation, Carmen Vela, ITER will "also open the door to the commercialization of fusion energy by laying the industrial foundations in each of its parties." 

View more on the event, as well as anniversary video clips, here.

Honoured for his role in fusion energy science
04 Dec 2017
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded physicist Edmund Synakowski with its Meritorious Service Award. He received the honour "for strong and insightful leadership" during his eight years as Associate Director of the DOE's Office of Fusion Energy Sciences and for having "reshaped and improved the national fusion energy sciences program," administering an annual budget of about US $400 million to develop nuclear fusion as an energy source.

Synakowski is the new vice president for research and economic development of the University of Wyoming where the award ceremony took place on 29 November 2017. He previously led the fusion energy program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and held a number of roles at Princeton University's Plasma Physics Laboratory.

Synakowski is an expert in plasma physics and has authored over 160 peer-reviewed articles on plasma fusion science.

Read the full article by the University of Wyoming here.

The Wendelstein 7-X magical virtual tour
30 Nov 2017
An unknown version of the famous Beatles song? No—a new way of exploring the experimental fusion device Wendelstein 7-X, located at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald, Germany.

Similar to ITER, Wendelstein 7-X aims to replicate the process at work in the core of the Sun to develop a clean and abundant energy source. This fusion device of the stellarator variety celebrated its first plasma in December 2015.

Are you interested in having a peek inside an extraordinary feat of science and technology? Normally accessible to experts only, Wendelstein 7-X has now opened its virtual doors and invites the interested public to a 360-degree tour. You can look into every corner of the experimentation hall, climb into the plasma vessel itself and visit the beam duct or listen to scientists explain the intricacies of the device and present their work. Information panels provide further background on plasma, superconducting magnets, graphite cladding, divertors and much more.

Go to this address to take a tour on your PC, tablet or smartphone.

Fundamental energy research at DIFFER (Eindhoven)
30 Nov 2017
At the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research, DIFFER, scientists are working to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society.

 

In the latest edition of the newsletter EXPLORE, researchers report on the promise of liquid metal walls in fusion reactors, the possibility of vapour shielding, and the institute's strategic plan for 2017-2022, which maintains a strong focus on fusion energy and solar fuels.

 

Read the latest DIFFER newsletter here.

New online platform for all things plasma
27 Nov 2017
Plasma science is about to get a new online outlet. Aptly named Plasma, the cross-disciplinary scholarly journal will be a platform for all aspects of plasma science such as plasma physics, plasma chemistry and space plasma. Publication formats include research articles, reviews, short communications and letters.

The international, open-access and peer-reviewed scientific journal will be published quarterly by the Swiss online publisher MDPI. The first volume of the new journal is expected to come out in 2018.

David A. Gates, principal research physicist and Stellarator Physics Division Head at the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), is the newly appointed editor-in-chief of the journal. Following his nomination Gates said: "I look forward to helping advance the international research arena in plasma science. This is an outstanding opportunity to help promote the research of a vital area of physics and to open the door to communicating that research to the global community."

Plasma is the fourth state of matter. It is a hot, electrically charged gas and the most abundant form of visible matter in the universe. Some 99 percent of the known universe is in plasma state. Plasma can also be found on Earth such as in lightning and fluorescent light bulbs.

Read more about the journal and its new editor-in-chief.

Assessing ITER's progress
20 Nov 2017
Representatives of the European Commission and delegates to the Council of the European Union responsible for science and research visited ITER on 20 November.

Their aim was to get first-hand information on the current status of the ITER Project to allow member states to respond to the Commission. Thirty-four delegates from 18 states plus Switzerland participated.

In a communication issued in June 2017, the Commission had requested support from the European Parliament and for a mandate from the Council of the European Union to approve—on behalf of Euratom—the new ITER Baseline, including the new schedule and the associated resource requirements.

The request was based on the Commission's positive assessment of the changes in the overall management of the ITER Project and the completion of important milestones in the preceding two years.

"Baking" the MAST tokamak
20 Nov 2017
The Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in the United Kingdom, owned and operated by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), is home to two magnetic fusion experiments.

The European tokamak JET is currently getting ready for a run of experiments using the high-power fuel mixture of deuterium and tritium (DT), while the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) is nearing the end of an upgrade program (completion 2018) to investigate the super-X divertor—a magnetic configuration that spreads the heat loads at the divertor area of the machine.

MAST is about to undergo a baking operation in order to clean the interior surfaces of the vessel and enable the ultra-high vacuum required for operation. In this picture, the machine has been fitted with a thermal jacket, ready for baking at 160 °C.

Read more about the operation on the CCFE website.

Fusion passion
13 Nov 2017
Fourteen authors and one illustrator share their passion for fusion in special October issue of Fusion in Europe. The issue contains a variety of topics ranging from ITER, JET, Brexit, material science, the Lawson Criterion, plasma turbulence and the history of fusion research in Mexico.

What is also special about the issue is that most of the authors are students or young researchers from around the world. The newsletter is thus a window onto the views of the next generation of fusion professionals and enthusiasts.

Click here to view the full October issue of Fusion in Europe.

Improving plasma stability in KSTAR
13 Nov 2017
A major challenge in the development of fusion energy is maintaining the ultra-hot plasma of a fusion device in a steady state, or stable form. While superconductors can allow a fusion reactor to operate indefinitely, controlling the plasma with superconductors presents a challenge because engineering constraints limit their response time compared to the more energy consuming copper coils.

The slower pace makes it difficult to operate a stable discharge with the large plasma volume or extended vertical height required for producing fusion power. Exploration of this issue in a current superconducting device is particularly helpful for ITER, which will be operational in 2025.

At the leading edge of this control challenge is the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device, one of the largest superconducting tokamaks in the world. Its superconductors are made of niobium and tin, the same conductor that is planned for use in ITER.

A team of US and Korean researchers, led by physicist Dennis Mueller (photo) of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has now sharply improved the stability of the elongated plasma in KSTAR, setting an example for how to address similar issues in other superconducting devices such as ITER. The successful control method, demonstrated this summer by Mueller and physicists from the National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI) in South Korea, which operates the tokamak, and General Atomics in San Diego, caps years of effort to control the vertical instability, which had allowed the plasma to bounce up and down in the 11-foot-high vacuum vessel.

See how they did it in the full article on the PPPL website.

Just like the sun? Not quite ...
13 Nov 2017
It is inscribed in bold letters on the large poster that is affixed to the ITER Assembly Hall: harnessing fusion energy is akin to "bringing the power of the Sun to Earth."

And it is true: like the Sun, the ITER Tokamak will produce energy by fusing hydrogen nuclei into helium.

The fusion reaction in our machine, however, is not like that which occurs in Sun-like stars. Although the end product (helium) and the ingredients (hydrogen isotopes in one case, hydrogen in the other) are the same, the nature of the process is profoundly different.

In a recent article on the Forbes website astrophysicist Ethan Siegel explains how "hydrogen-fusing-into-helium makes up less than half of all nuclear reactions in our Sun," and how the nuclear physics in stellar bodies abounds in "strange, unearthly phenomena."

The inscription on the Assembly Hall remains nonetheless true. ITER is indeed "bringing the power of the Sun to Earth." It's just that stars and tokamaks have different ways of obtaining a similar result.

Click here to read the full Forbes.com article.

Microwaves can control Alfvén waves in fusion plasmas
09 Nov 2017
An international team of fusion experts working at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, California, has discovered a way to minimize the effects of a phenomenon that can decrease the performance of fusion reactors and even possibly cause damage to the device. This work shows that localized electron heating by microwaves is an effective tool for modifying Alfvén eigenmode activity in DIII-D and other devices worldwide.

Alfvén waves can cause redistribution or loss of the injected neutral beam ions that are needed to heat fusion devices and of the helium nuclei (alpha particles) produced by the fusion reaction that also contribute to the continued heating of the plasma. If left to grow unabated, the Alfvén waves can result in reduced performance and potentially damage vessel components.

Powerful microwave beams deposited near the location of so-called reversed shear Alfvén eigenmodes (RSAEs) are found to modify the wave activity significantly—in some cases completely removing the modes. Based on experiments run at the DIII-D tokamak, the team has arrived at a simple model that determines how to predictably minimize RSAEs by using microwaves to heat the electrons at particular points in the plasma.

Read the full report here.

-- Spectrograms showing the change in wave activity with and without microwave heating. With no heating (top), upward frequency sweeping RSAEs are observed. With heating near the wave location (bottom), no RSAEs are expected or observed. Adapted from: M.A. Van Zeeland, W.W. Heidbrink , S.E. Sharapov , D. Spong , A. Cappa, et.al., Nucl. Fusion 56, 112007 (2016).

Is fusion the fuel of the future?
30 Oct 2017
An update on ITER has been published in the Autumn 2017 issue of Energy Focus, the flagship magazine of the UK-based Energy Industries Council.

Titled "Is Fusion the Fuel of the Future?" the article describes recent project performance, concerns about the effect of Brexit, and why it's all worth it.

You can read the article on line at Energy Focus (pp 46-47).

ITER on National Geographic
25 Oct 2017
A new National Geographic series on renewable energy, called "Positive Energy," will be featuring the ITER Project in one of its upcoming episodes.

The episode will be viewable on the National Geographic Channel in Europe on Wednesday 1 November at 10:00 p.m. 

It has already been broadcast on the National Geographic Channel in Africa and China (25 October) and in the Americas (18 October).

See more on the "Positive Energy" website.

 

How bubbles at the edge of plasmas can reduce reaction efficiency
23 Oct 2017
For hydrogen atoms to fuse into helium, the heat of the ultrahot plasma in the tokamak must be maintained. But, like boiling water, plasma has blobs (or bubbles) that percolate within the plasma edge, reducing the performance of the plasma by taking away heat that sustains the fusion reactions.

Now, scientists at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in the US have completed new simulations that could provide insight into how blobs at the plasma edge behave. The simulations, produced by a code called XGC1 developed by a national team based at PPPL, performed kinetic simulations of two different regions of the plasma edge simultaneously. This ability produces a more fundamental and fuller picture of how heat moves from plasma to the walls, potentially causing damage.

Blobs play an important role in the outward movement of particles in plasma. Blobs cause approximately 50 percent of the particle loss at the plasma edge, and researchers have observed blobs in a wide range of plasma devices, including tokamaks, figure-eight-shaped fusion devices known as stellarators, and linear machines. "The big picture is that blobs can pull energy and particles out of the plasma, and you don't want that," said PPPL physicist Michael Churchill, lead author of a paper describing the results in the journal Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. Churchill said. "You want to keep things confined."

Read more on the PPPL website.

-- Physicist Michael Churchill

The promise of liquid lithium
23 Oct 2017
Researchers led by the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have proposed an innovative design to improve the ability of future fusion power plants to generate safe, clean and abundant energy in a steady state, or constant, manner. The design uses loops of liquid lithium to clean and recycle the tritium, the radioactive hydrogen isotope that fuels fusion reactions, and to protect the divertor plates from intense exhaust heat from the tokamak that contains the reactions.

"There are many challenges to developing fusion energy and the handling of heat on divertor plates is among them," said PPPL physicist Masa Ono, lead author of a paper about the design published in the journal Nuclear Fusion. "We wanted to see how we can protect the divertor plates and keep the fusion chamber clean."

The system that Ono and colleagues designed calls for pumping liquid lithium in and out of a tokamak, a type of magnetic fusion device, to maintain steady state operation while cleaning out dust and other impurities from the plasma and safeguarding the divertor. The lithium, a silvery metal that readily combines with other elements, would serve a number of functions, including protecting the divertor plates, capturing tritium for recycling, and removing dust and other unwanted elements.

Continue reading on the PPPL website.

-- Physicist Masa Ono of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

Powering the world
16 Oct 2017
According to the United States Energy Information Administration, the amount of energy supplied by all fuel sources across the world is tremendous: 155,481 teraWatt-hours as of 2014, the latest year on record.

In order to meet this enormous energy demand in a given year, we need to burn 24 billions tonnes of coal, or 12 billion tonnes of oil, or a bit less of natural gas (10.4 billion tonnes).That's for fossil fuels.

If we were to use only conventional nuclear energy to power the world, we would need to consume approximately 7,000 tonnes of nuclear fuel (enriched uranium or mixed oxyde).

However with nuclear fusion, only 867 tonnes of hydrogen would suffice...

Forbes magazine has a detailed article on this topic here.

Experiments on the WEST tokamak should resume in October
13 Oct 2017
The WEST project is based on an upgrade of the Tore Supra tokamak, in operation since 1988 in France (CEA- IRFM).

With its new tungsten divertor WEST has become a test bed for ITER, capable of testing ITER high heat flux component technologies in relevant plasma conditions. 

Following the commissioning of its sub-systems, WEST has had a short shutdown period during which the ICRH antenna was installed and other machine optimization activities carried out. Plasma experiments should resume in October.

See the latest news in WEST's October newsletter.

Diagnostic sensors shown to resist neutrons
13 Oct 2017
The European Domestic Agency has successfully tested prototypes of a specific type of magnetic diagnostic sensor at the Belgian SCK-CEN and the Czech REZ laboratories.

The diagnostic sensor prototypes, based on Low-Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) technology, responded well to neutron exposure. Data collected throughout the experimentation will help engineers optimize the sensors' final design.

The diagnostic LTCC sensors measure the magnetic field around the plasma core and yield vital information regarding its position and shape. Of the more than 1,500 magnetic field sensors of various different types required on ITER, the LTCC-based sensors will be most exposed to neutrons.

The prototypes were manufactured by EPFL (Switzerland), Via Electronic (Germany) and VTT (Finland).

Read the full story on the European Domestic Agency website.

Fusion documentary opens Pariscience Film Festival
09 Oct 2017
It was against the backdrop of the magnificent National Museum of Natural History where "Let there be Light" celebrated its most recent success by opening the 2017 edition of the Pariscience Film Festival.

More than 200 guests, among them many film-producers and journalists, had gathered in the historic amphitheatre to watch the award-winning 90-minute documentary on fusion energy produced by Canadian director Mila Aung-Thwin and cinematographer Van Royko.

Only four days before, Mila Aung-Thwin had attended the Zurich Film Festival where the film screened twice. Now he was on stage in Paris, together with ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot and ITER scientist Mark Henderson, answering the questions from the audience. For most of the attendees, the film had been the first contact with the ITER Project and so the crowd was curious to learn more about the international quest for fusion energy.

The applause at the end paid tribute to an entertaining evening and—as many professional film producers attested—to an outstanding film.

Russia ships 85 tonnes of busbars
02 Oct 2017
A third batch of electrotechnical equipment has left the port of Saint Petersburg, Russia, for delivery to ITER. On board are 85 tonnes of aluminium DC busbars and system components, part of an overall procurement package that includes some 5 kilometres of busbars (500 tonnes) as well as fast discharge units and switching networks.

Busbars are the long metal components that will "snake" through the installation to feed the superconducting magnets with large amounts of current. The biggest are designed to carry close to 70 kiloamps of current to the 18 toroidal field coils of the machine; others will connect to the poloidal field coils, correction coils and the central solenoid.

The first two batches of equipment were delivered and 2015 and 2016, and more are expected. The main supplier of this equipment is the Efremov Institute (NIIEFA), St. Petersburg.

--Alex Petrov, ITER Russia

New interim director for Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
28 Sep 2017
Rich Hawryluk—who was Deputy Director-General for the Administration Department at the ITER Organization from 2011 to 2013—has been appointed interim director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) while an international search for a permanent director moves forward. 

The leadership change comes as PPPL moves forward with the recovery phase of the NSTX-U spherical tokamak, which encountered a malfunction in one of its magnet coils in 2016. The lab is constructing prototype magnets in preparation for replacing the one that failed last year, as well as five others that were built under similar conditions. 

Hawryluk has a long association with the PPPL lab, having served as former head of the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) in the 1990s, deputy director of the laboratory from 1997 to 2008, and head of the ITER and Tokamaks Department from 2009 to 2011 and 2013 to the present.

Photo reportage of the KTM tokamak
14 Sep 2017
The KTM tokamak, based at the National Nuclear Center in Kurchatov, Kazakhstan, is a small and versatile machine that is capable of testing materials under high particle and heat flux.

The spotlight turned this summer to this recent member of the worldwide tokamak community, as Kazakhstan hosted the 2017 World's Fair. A Cooperation Agreement was also signed between Kazakhstan's National Nuclear Center and the ITER Organization in June 2017 that opens the door to scientific and engineering cooperation between the two institutions.

Kazakh Journalist Grigory Bedenko has visited the KTM Tokamak in Kurchatov, where commissioning operations are underway in preparation for the start of operations next year.

See his long photo reportage here.

Russian firm is developing port plug test stands
04 Sep 2017
ITER's vacuum vessel port plugs are critical components that seal the plasma chamber and allow experiments to take place in a high vacuum environment.

The Russian Domestic Agency—responsible for supplying four test stands for the vacuum, heat and functional testing of the port plugs before their installation on the machine—has contracted with the Russian firm Cryogenmash for the development of the technology.

The team at Cryogenmash is currently testing the sealing flanges that will secure the port plugs on the test stand and running tests on the gaskets to arrive at a final choice of technology and material. Vacuum and leak tests were run recently with results that surpassed expectations.

Watch a five-minute video of the work underway courtesy of ITER Russia.

Podcast on nuclear fusion and ITER from Bloomberg
29 Aug 2017
The latest podcast from Decrypted by Bloomberg starts with the question: "How close are we to realizing the silver bullet for clean, cheap and abundant energy ... fusion?"

Featuring lengthy interviews at the US Department of Energy's largest science and energy laboratory, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, journalists Jing Cao and Aki Ito delve into the way nuclear fusion fuels our Sun and stars and how scientists plan to make it commercially viable on Earth, despite a lack of funding ...

Follow the 25-minute podcast "The Nuclear Tech Breakthrough That Could Make Oil Obsolete" here

PPPL physicist discovers that some plasma instabilities can extinguish themselves
24 Aug 2017
Physicist Fatima Ebrahimi from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has for the first time used advanced models to accurately simulate key characteristics of the cyclic behaviour of edge-localized modes (ELMs), a particular type of plasma instability.

The findings could help physicists more fully comprehend the behaviour of plasma, the hot, charged gas that fuels fusion reactions in doughnut-shaped fusion facilities called tokamaks, and more reliably produce plasmas for fusion reactions. The findings could also provide insight into solar flares, the eruptions of enormous masses of plasma from the surface of the sun into space.

ELMs occur around the outer edge of high-confinement, or H-mode, plasmas due to strong edge currents. Ebrahimi used a computer simulation code known as NIMROD to show how ELMs go through a repeated cycle in which they form, develop, and vanish.

The model demonstrates that ELMs can form when a steep gradient of current exists at the plasma edge. The gradient develops when the plasma moves suddenly up or down, creating a bump in the current and forming an edge current sheet. The instability then forms a current-carrying filament that moves around the tokamak, producing electrical fields that interfere with the currents that caused the ELMs to form. With the original currents disrupted, the ELM dies. "In a way," Ebrahimi said, "an ELM eliminates its own source — erases the bump on the edge current — by its own motion."

Ebrahimi's findings are consistent with observations of cyclic behaviour of ELMs in tokamaks around the world. These include Pegasus, a small spherical device at the University of Wisconsin; the Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST) in the United Kingdom; and the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX), the flagship facility at PPPL before its recent upgrade. The research could also improve understanding of solar eruptions, which are accompanied by filamentary structures similar to those produced by ELMs. Her next step will involve investigating the impact of differences in plasma pressure on the cyclic behaviour of ELMs.

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

Qualifying critical elements of the ITER divertor
08 Aug 2017
The elements of the ITER divertor that will directly face the hot plasma must withstand a heat load that is estimated at ten times that of a spacecraft re-entering Earth's atmosphere.

Procuring parties Russia (divertor dome), Japan (divertor outer targets) and Europe (divertor inner targets) are all engaged in multiyear qualification programs that include prototype fabrication and high heat flux testing.

The European Domestic Agency made the choice of contracting with three separate manufacturers for the development of small-scale inner vertical target prototypes that are 1/19th of the actual scale needed for ITER. In the first stage of the pre-qualification program the prototypes were successfully tested in high heat flux conditions; the next step will now be to develop full-scale prototypes. This phase—which involves the three manufacturers plus a fourth, pre-qualified supplier—is expected to last approximately three years.

Read the full article on the European Domestic Agency website.

In memoriam: Dr Yasuo Shimomura
04 Aug 2017
We have learned with profound sadness of the passing of Dr Yasuo Shimomura, who served as ITER Deputy Director from the beginning of the Engineering Design Activities (EDA) in 1992 until 2001. From 2001 until 2003 Dr Shimomura was ITER International Team Co-Leader, and from 2003 until 2005 he was ITER Interim Project Leader; during this last period he led the ITER team through the difficult transitional phase from the design activity to the start of construction in 2006.

A graduate of Osaka University, Dr Shimomura had a distinguished career in fusion research at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, JAERI (now part of the National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology, QST). He was a leading figure in the construction and operation of the JFT-2a/DIVA tokamak, developing a reactor-relevant divertor concept that is currently being applied to ITER. He was also Leader of the JT-60 Experimental Planning and Analysis Group, and in 1986 was appointed as Head of the Large Tokamak Experiment Division at JAERI, with overall responsibility for the JT-60 tokamak. From 1988 he combined the leadership of the JT-60 device and its conversion to JT-60U with an appointment as Head of the Poloidal Field Design Group within the ITER Conceptual Design Activities (CDA). He was appointed ITER Deputy Director within the ITER EDA in July 1992, with responsibility for the design integration of the project. Dr Shimomura also held guest scientist positions at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory from 1976 to 1977 and at the Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik in Garching from 1981 to 1982.

Dr Shimomura will be remembered by his many friends and colleagues in the ITER community as a gifted physicist who contributed greatly to the project during an involvement spanning 20 years. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him and who benefitted from his leadership and guidance.

Exploring welding techniques for test blanket modules in Europe
03 Aug 2017
In ITER, six technological solutions for tritium breeding—in the form of test blanket modules plus associated ancillary systems—will be operated and tested for the first time. Their experimental validation will represent a major step for fusion development beyond ITER, when tritium fuel will necessarily have to be bred within the reactor.

In China, Europe, India, Japan and Korea these solutions are under development, with Russia and the United States contributing R&D and providing general support for the test blanket module program.

Europe is developing two types of test blanket modules, which consist of a steel box containing tritium breeders, neutron multiplier materials and heat extraction plates. Over the past two years, the European Domestic Agency and industrial partners have been manufacturing mockups of these boxes to test welding techniques. A preliminary welding procedure, employing a tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding robot to carry out the tasks within the limited space of the box, has been identified. The welding qualification cycle is expected to end within the next two years.

See the full article on the European Domestic Agency website.

Ed Synakowski changes roles
26 Jul 2017
Edmund Synakowski—the Associate Director of the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fusion Energy Sciences and former ITER Council Vice-Chair—has been chosen as the University of Wyoming's vice president for research and economic development. Synakowski will also be a professor in the university's Department of Physics and Astronomy.

The role of the vice president for research and economic development is to support and facilitate the research efforts of University of Wyoming's faculty, staff and students; direct the university's research mission as a public research university; promote the university's research program with stakeholders; and direct technology transfer and commercialization efforts for the university's intellectual property.

Synakowski has held his current position, associate director of science in the Department of Energy, since 2009, administering a budget of about $400 million annually to develop nuclear fusion as an energy source. His agency supports research at more than 50 universities, eight national and two federal laboratories, and 15 industry groups.

He previously led the Fusion Energy Program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and held a number of roles at Princeton University's Plasma Physics Laboratory.

Read the full report on the University of Wyoming's website here.

Miniature eyes for maintenance
26 Jul 2017
At least 100 miniature cameras will be installed inside the ITER machine to act as the eyes for operators charged with machine maintenance.

Some of them will give a wide-angle view of the inside of the machine; others will be embedded on the robotic arms used for repairs. By receiving live image from the cameras, engineers hundreds of metres away will be able to operate maintenance and repair equipment with extreme accuracy.

The European Domestic Agency has been working with Oxford Technologies Limited (OTL) to develop and validate the different subsystems of the miniature cameras, which will have to operate within severe space constraints and often in an environment exposed to radiation. Subsystems developed by ISAE, France (image sensors); CEA, France (illumination system); and Jean Monnet University Saint Etienne, France (optic system) have been successfully tested over the past year at Belgium's SCK-CEN facility where they were exposed to different levels of gamma radiation.

The next step will be to develop a camera prototype.

Read the full story on the European Domestic Agency website.

How hot is too hot?
10 Jul 2017
To predict the impact of removing exhaust heat from the ITER Tokamak, researchers are calling on the Titan supercomputer at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in the US.

Using the 27-petaflop behemoth, researchers based at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) are simulating the area where the plasma edge meets the divertor—the material structure engineered to remove exhaust heat from the vacuum vessel. Specifically, the team has evaluated the heat-flux width at the divertor, or the width of the material surface that might sustain the highest heat load.

Because the divertor directly faces the exhaust flow, it is bombarded with hot particles driven by electromagnetic fluctuations. In ITER, in order to withstand the highest surface heat load, the divertor will be made of the toughest element on Earth: tungsten.

"You don't want to start and stop ITER too often to replace this divertor material, so it has to be able to withstand the heat load," team leader C.S. Chang reports. "Ideally, we want the hot exhaust particles to hit the surface in a much wider area so that it's not damaged."

Based on simulations made possible by Titan's supercomputing capacity, Chang's team predicts that in ITER, due to the size of the plasma, edge plasma turbulence may spread heat across a larger area of the divertor surface and significantly increase the heat-flux width relative to current smaller-scale fusion devices.

Read the full report on research results at OLCF.

Diagnostic upgrade at TCV
03 Jul 2017
At the Swiss Plasma Center in Lausanne, Switzerland, the TCV tokamak was recently shut down for an upgrade of its Thomson scattering diagnostic. The operation was successful: shortly after commissioning the first measurements demonstrated greatly enhanced spatial and spectral resolution for the temperature and density profile measurements of TCV plasmas.

TCV is a variable configuration tokamak with highly specialized capabilities (plasma shaping, versatile electron cyclotron heating, measurement, control systems) for the exploration of the physics of magnetically confined plasmas.

See the full article on the EPFL/Swiss Plasma Center website.

How to maintain the divertor?
26 Jun 2017
Under contract with the European Domestic Agency, a team of experts has been working for more than a year to identify key technologies to perform the cutting and welding operations that will be required during the change-out of ITER divertor cassettes.

The technical constraints are enormous—the work (both cutting and welding) will have to be performed remotely, the operational space is severely limited, and no lubricant can be applied as ITER is a nuclear environment.

Experts from Assystem UK and the UKAEA robotics development laboratory RACE (for Remote Applications in Challenging Environments) have identified candidate techniques; now trials are underway and the search is on for the best tools to do the work remotely.

Read more on the European Domestic Agency website.

Tokamaks inspire
26 Jun 2017
The steel, the pipes, the tangle of cables and wires ... to sum it looks confusingly technological—but to others it's inspiring!

UK artist Sarah Moncrieff specialises in urban scenes and industrial interiors. She first heard of JET, the European fusion research experiment hosted at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), via a friend who works at the site.

"He thought, quite accurately, that I would be interested in it as a subject for my painting. What I hadn't anticipated was how much I would become interested in the work that is done at Culham. The work is fascinating and the sense of seeing something at the forefront of scientific progress was thrilling for me. I know that excitement informed my paintings."

Sarah's paintings of JET were recently exposed at an on-site Open Day, to popular acclaim. You can see more of Sarah's work on her website.

Read the full article at CCFE.

News from WEST's commissioning
19 Jun 2017
After celebrating its First Plasma in December 2016, the WEST tokamak (for W Environment in Steady-state Tokamak) was reopened for the installation of two modified LHCD antennas for plasma heating (through lower hybrid current drive), then plasma operations restarted in April 2017.

Although plasma breakdown was routinely achieved, the ramping up of the plasma current was found to be difficult due to induced currents in the passive structures that have been introduced inside the vacuum vessel to produce the divertor configuration.

In effect, the WEST test platform is a modification of the Tore Supra tokamak at the Institute for Magnetic Research (CEA Cadarache, France) that introduces an actively cooled tungsten divertor. The machine has been considerably altered, with a "welcoming structure" for the new divertor, new in-vessel coils, new diagnostics, and adaptations to the heating, fuelling and cooling systems.

The vessel has been reopened to address stray magnetic field compensation through modification of the divertor baffle and a reduction in its electric conductivity to limit induced current. Experiments are expected to resume by the end of June.

Read more in the lastest WEST Newsletter.

Optimizing lithium to control fusion plasmas
19 Jun 2017
For fusion to generate substantial energy, the ultra-hot plasma that fuels fusion reactions must remain stable and kept from cooling. Researchers have recently shown lithium, a soft, silver-white metal, to be effective in both respects during path-setting US-Chinese experiments on the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) in Hefei, China.

Seven US researchers traveled to EAST in December, 2016, to participate in the experiments. They deployed lithium in the Chinese tokamak in three different ways: through a lithium powder injector, a lithium granule injector, and a flowing liquid lithium limiter (FLiLi) that delivered the element in liquid form to the edge of EAST plasmas. Good results were shown by all three techniques.

Leading the US collaboration is the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), together with co-principal investigators Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, with Johns Hopkins University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Scientists from General Atomics also participate via a separate grant.

-- John Greenwald, PPPL

See the full report on the PPPL website.

Prof Predhiman Krishan Kaw (1948-2017)
19 Jun 2017
It is with great regret that the ITER community has learned of the sudden passing of Professor Predhiman Krishan Kaw on 18 June.

Professor Kaw was a well-known and highly respected plasma physicist, author of over 380 research publications in scientific journals. He was the founding director of the Institute for Plasma Research in Gujarat, India, which he led from 1986 to 2012. Named Year of Science Chair by the Indian Department of Science & Technology (DST), Professor Kaw continued to be active in research and in the mentoring and training of the younger generation of plasma physicists as DST Professor at the Institute for Plasma Research.

Professor Kaw was also the first Chair of the ITER Council Science and Technology Advisory Committee (STAC), leading the committee's deliberations from 2007 to 2009, and a regular participant to ITER Council meetings as Representative of India.

For his outstanding contributions to experimental and/or theoretical research in fundamental plasma physics and plasma applications, he was awarded the prestigious Padma Shri award (India's fourth highest honour) in 1985; the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology in 1986; the World Academy of Sciences (TWAP) Prize in 2008; and the Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Prize of Plasma Physics in 2016 (see related article in Newsline).

See the Institute for Plasma Research website for more information.

Professor Predhiman Krishan Kaw (2nd from left) is seen here on 21 November 2014 at the inauguration of the Cryostat Workshop, where India is assembling the ITER cryostat. With him are the former ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima; M.V. Kotwal, president of Larsen & Toubro's Heavy Engineering Division; and Shishir P. Deshpande, Head of the Indian Domestic Agency.

Does your project need computing power?
12 Jun 2017
The Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in the UK is looking for people in the fusion community who could benefit from its new cloud-based computing facility, which has a capacity to crunch data that could help researchers and promote collaborative projects. 

The CUMULUS Modular Data Centre, which opened in May, propels CCFE into the next era of supercomputing. With a total of 1128 cores, 18 terabytes of RAM and 170 TB of high performance storage—and the capacity to grow in sync with CCFE's need for computing power—the cloud-base system is also open to users across the international fusion community.

Interested parties should contact Rob Akers at rob.akers@ukaea.uk.

Lithium oxide on tokamak walls can improve plasma performance
05 Jun 2017
Lithium compounds improve plasma performance in fusion devices just as well as pure lithium does, a team of physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has found.

The research was conducted by former Princeton University physics graduate student Matt Lucia under the guidance of Robert Kaita, principal research physicist at PPPL and one of Lucia's thesis advisors, as well as the team of scientists working on a machine known as the Lithium Tokamak Experiment (LTX).

Lucia used a new device known as the materials analysis and particle probe (MAPP), invented at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and installed on LTX. The MAPP system lets scientists withdraw samples into a chamber connected to LTX and study them without compromising LTX's vacuum environment. MAPP lets scientists analyze how tokamak plasmas affect a material immediately after the experiment ends. In the past, scientists could only study samples after the machine had been shut down for maintenance; at that point, the vacuum had been broken and the samples had been exposed to many experiments, as well as to air.

Lucia used the evaporation technique to coat a piece of metal with lithium, and then used MAPP to expose the metal to plasma within LTX. As he expected, Lucia observed lithium oxide, which forms when lithium reacts with residual oxygen in LTX's vacuum chamber. He was surprised, however, to find that the compound was just as capable of absorbing deuterium as pure lithium was.

"Matt discovered that even after the lithium coating was allowed to sit on the plasma-facing components within LTX and oxidize, it still was able to bind hydrogen," said Kaita.

Lucia's results are the first direct evidence that lithium oxide forms on tokamak walls and that it retains hydrogen isotopes as well as pure lithium does. They support the observation that lithium oxide can form on both graphite, like the tiles in NSTX, and on metal, and improve plasma performance.

Read the full article by Raphael Rosen on the PPPL website.

-- Physicists Robert Kaita and Michael Jaworski in front of another PPPL fusion device, the NSTX-Upgrade.

Six plasma exhaust projects to receive funding in Europe
23 May 2017
In the context of its Roadmap to the realization of fusion electricity EUROfusion, the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, has identified a number of crucial technical challenges that must be addressed through advanced research.

One of these is finding a viable solution for the heat exhaust in a future fusion reactor, considering that the divertor strategy planned for ITER cannot be extrapolated to a larger, steady-state facility.

Late 2015, EUROfusion called for proposals on plasma exhaust projects, which an independent panel of experts evaluated. The call, termed Plasma Exhaust (PEX) Assessment, received ten proposals that covered conventional and alternative divertors, as well as conventional materials and plasma-facing units as well as advanced materials.

EUROfusion selected six projects for receiving support. These include: ASDEX Upgrade at the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics, Garching (Germany); Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany); Jozef Stefan Institute (Slovenia); MAST-Upgrade, (United Kingdom); TCV at the Swiss Plasma Center (Switzerland); and WEST at CEA (France).

Read the full article at EUROfusion here.

--Photo of the JET tokamak courtesy EUROfusion

Enthusiastic about fusion?
15 May 2017
After the success of the first fusion writers' edition of Fusion in Europe last year, the magazine is again looking for ambitious volunteer writers for the 2017 autumn issue.

Fusion in Europe is the regular publication of EUROfusion, the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, which manages European fusion research activitites on behalf of Euratom.

Applicants should be enthusiastic and ambitious, with ideas about how to share the promise of fusion with the world. The deadline is 21 June. For more information, please visit this link.

Fusion materials tested at unique facility
15 May 2017
Scientists now have a better understanding of the factors leading to steel degradation and of the ways to improve the design and development of key components, such as the ITER breeding blankets—where tritium fuel will be produced from the interaction of fusion neutrons with lithium.

In a unique test facility at the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) in Brasimone, candidate steels were exposed to liquid lithium in order to measure degradation (corrosion and/or erosion) over time.

Two types of reduced activation ferritic martensitic (RAFM) steels under consideration for fusion applications—EUROFER97 and F82H—were tested at ENEA's LiFus6, built for the IFMIF/EVEDA project (IFMIF will carry out testing and qualification of advanced materials under conditions similar to those of a future fusion power plant/EVEDA is advancing the engineering validation of key IFMIF components and systems).

IFMIF/EVEDA is developed jointly by Europe and Japan in the framework of the Broader Approach agreement, which covers fusion R&D activities that are complementary to ITER and the next-stage device DEMO.

Read more about the successful LiFus6 test campaign on the European Domestic Agency website.

Image: Celebrating at ENEA: IFMIF/EVEDA Project Committee members and representatives of contributing laboratories.

Useful downtime at Wendelstein 7-X
01 May 2017
Following an initial run at the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator that lasted from December 2015 to March 2016, a shutdown phase ensued to equip the machine for an operational campaign with longer discharges and higher heating power.

As part of tasks to prepare for the next phase, programmed to start this summer, technicians have installed or adapted 8,000 graphite tiles on the inner wall of the plasma vessel, replaced the limiter with a test divertor, and installed cooling structures such as pipes and shields.

Read about the complexity of these shutdown activities in the latest "Wendelstein 7-X Newsletter."

Image: courtesy of IPP Greifswald

Funding for MAST Upgrade enhancements
24 Apr 2017
Culham's new tokamak MAST Upgrade is to receive funding to tackle one of the hottest issues in fusion energy research—plasma exhaust.

EUROfusion, the European consortium for fusion R&D, has approved the first phase of its contribution to a £21-million program of enhancements to MAST Upgrade, which is only months away from its first operations. Funding for the enhancements, which will be phased from now to 2022, will come jointly from EUROfusion and the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

The controlled exhaust of power and particles from a very hot tokamak fusion plasma, through the divertor area of the machine, is arguably the biggest challenge facing a future fusion power plant. The extreme power loadings (>10 megawatts per square metre—higher than that on a spacecraft re-entering Earth's atmosphere) in a conventional divertor will require regular replacement of reactor components and adversely affect the economics and cost of electricity. It is no surprise, then, that divertor and exhaust physics is a major part of EUROfusion's reactor design work as part of their EU Roadmap to the Realisation of Fusion Energy.

See the original article at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) to find out more about the planned enhancements.

Light shed on mysterious plasma flows
10 Apr 2017
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and General Atomics have simulated a mysterious self-organized flow of the superhot plasma that fuels fusion reactions. The findings show that pumping more heat into the core of the plasma can drive instabilities that create plasma rotation inside the doughnut-shaped tokamak that houses the hot charged gas. This rotation may be used to improve the stability and performance of fusion devices.

The results, reported in January in the journal Physical Review Letters, use first principles-based plasma turbulence simulations of experiments performed on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility that General Atomics operates for the DOE in San Diego. The findings could lead to improved control of fusion reactions in ITER, the international experiment under construction in France to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion power.

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

Fusion in the energy system 2050+
10 Apr 2017
In order to master what's commonly refered to as "the energy transition," a diversity of energy sources need to be matched up in the energy system of the future — decentralized and centralized, weather-dependent and continuously operable units.

The technological and economic interactions of all system components (generation, storage, load and transport facilities) and their intelligent networking are being tackled by the Energy System Integration project, which the Helmholtz Association is funding with five million euros in the next three years in the context of their Initiative and Networking Fund. The partners involved, including Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) at Garching und Greifswald, are making further contributions.

The aim of the research project is to model the architecture for an environmentally compatible, efficient and stable energy system of the future.

Expected as new primary energy source in the second half of the century are fusion power plants, environmentally and climatically friendly facilities supplying about one gigawatt of electric power. The contribution of IPP will therefore be to work out the physical and technical properties of these devices — of either the tokamak or stellarator type.

Read more about the project on the IPP Garching website. (Photo: © EFDA)

Wanted: university grads from Europe
03 Apr 2017
Are you a university graduate who wants to gain international professional experience and contribute to the work of the European Domestic Agency for ITER? Or who is curious about ITER and simply wants to be part of one of the most ambitious energy projects in the world today? The European Domestic Agency for ITER is looking for graduates in engineering, physics, law, human resources, finance and communication for four to nine months beginning 1 October 2017.

The traineeship program is open to university graduates who are nationals of one of the Member States of the European Union or Switzerland, who have at least a three-year university degree obtained within the last three years, and a very good knowledge of English. Traineeships are offered in Barcelona (Spain), Garching (Germany) and at the ITER site in France.

The deadline to apply is 26 April 2017. Please find all information here.

Last piece in the MAST tokamak puzzle
22 Mar 2017
At the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in the UK, the central magnet of the new MAST upgrade tokamak was positioned in early March, bringing the project one step closer to the finishing line.

When completed, the MAST upgrade will mark a step-up in performance from the original device, with an increase in magnetic field from 0.52 tesla to 0.78 tesla and in pulse length from 0.5 seconds to 5 seconds. The centre column, completely re-manufactured, is part of the magnetic coil system of the device with the role of inducing current to begin to heat the plasma.

Commissioning should begin this year.

Read the full report on the Culham Centre's website.

Helios supercomputer: retired after 5 years of service
20 Mar 2017
For five years, it has been a resource for the plasma physics community. The Helios supercomputer has performed complex calculations for plasma physics and fusion technology, allowing users to draw comparisons between current fusion experiments and run predictive simulations for future devices like ITER.  

Helios has been in operation at the International Fusion Energy Research Centre (IFERC), hosted by the Japanese Atomic Energy Authority (JAEA) since late 2011. IFERC is one of the sub-projects of the Broader Approach agreement signed between Europe and Japan for advanced fusion R&D in complement to ITER.

After a very successful operational campaign, Helios was shut down earlier this year.

Read the full story on the European Domestic Agency website.

--The Helios Supercomputer at the Computational Simulation Centre in Japan (Source: JAEA)

No sleep during shutdown of JET tokamak
20 Mar 2017
The European tokamak JET is currently in an engineering shutdown phase. But shutdown doesn't mean inactivity—scientists are currently reviewing the 2015-2016 experimental campaign and preparing for the next scientific program, which will include tritium-tritium operation followed by full fusion power experiments using deuterium and tritium in 2019.

The JET remote handling team has taken advantage of shutdown to carry out a photographic survey of the vacuum vessel to inspect the condition of the wall, and to calibrate the detector that measures neutrons using the MASCOT remote handling system—a system allowing operators to undertake a wide range of tasks including welding, cutting, bolting, handling and inspection through a special manipulator that acts almost as the extension of an arm.

Read the full report on the website of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE).

A new filter for heavy hydrogen
14 Mar 2017
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, the University of Leipzig, Jacobs University Bremen, the University of Augsburg, and the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are working collaboratively on a new technique for filtering the fusion fuel deuterium out of the natural isotopic mixture of hydrogen.

Deuterium is obtained from heavy water, which occurs in natural water at a concentration of just 15 parts per thousand. The heavy water is first isolated by a combination of chemical and physical methods, such as distillation, to obtain deuterium gas. The whole process is so intricate and energy-intensive that a gram of deuterium with a purity of 99.8 percent costs around $100, making hydrogen's heavy brother around three times more precious than gold, although deuterium is more than 300 times more abundant in the oceans and Earth's crust than gold.

A metal-organic framework compound presented by the group could make the process easier and less energy-intensive.

Read the full report from ORNL here.

Fusion summer school announced at IPP (Germany)
01 Mar 2017
Every summer, the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching near Munich, Germany, organizes a one-week summer school in plasma physics for undergraduates.

The course covers the main aspects of plasma physics with emphasis on nuclear fusion:
  • Energy consumption and selected aspects of the environmental impact of energy production
  • Basics of plasma physics and nuclear fusion
  • Kinetic and magneto-hydrodynamic description of a plasma
  • Concepts and experimental results of tokamak and stellarator configurations
  • Plasma heating and diagnostics
  • Plasma-wall interaction and materials research
  • Safety and environmental aspects of fusion
  • ITER and the next steps towards a reactor
  • Inertial fusion
  • Astrophysical plasmas
The lectures—held in English—are designed for physics and engineering students who have passed their bachelor (undergraduate) courses or Masters students who have not yet decided their PhD topic.
 
The next summer school will take place from 11 to 15 September 2017 at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching, Germany. Follow this link for more information.
Quench tank delivery video
20 Feb 2017
Some 4,500 components, large and small, will be shipped to ITER for integration into the ITER cryoplant, which is under construction now on the ITER platform.

Two of the largest were delivered in November 2016 by the European Domestic Agency: 35-metre quench tanks that will store gaseous helium in the case of a magnet quench.

The tanks are formed from an inner stainless steel container that will hold the gas and an outer carbon steel shell that will insulate the inner vessel and keep the temperatures low.

Manufacturered by Air Liquide subcontractor Chart Ferox (Czech Republic) according to ITER Organization and European Domestic Agency requirements, the tanks travelled at night in a long convoy along the ITER Itinerary from the Mediterranean port of Fos-sur-Mer to ITER.

See the full report here (including a 4'10" video).

A new code and its photographic by-product
20 Feb 2017
A physicist at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) is developing a code to calibrate camera views of fusion experiments.  

For the past two years, Scott Silburn has been leading the development of Calcam, a program for calibrating camera viewing geometry on fusion devices. The program allows the user to match up features seen in the camera images with those on a computer-aided design model from the drawing office at Culham. From this, the position, orientation, and lens properties of a camera system can be determined. This information can then be used to calculate exactly where the camera's lines-of-sight pass through the plasma, and also which locations on in-vessel components correspond to which positions in the image.

An example application of the code is improved positional calibration for JET's high-resolution divertor infrared cameras, which measure the heat loads at the strike points where the plasma interacts with the divertor tiles. The improved information has been used to improve the accuracy of some of the signals from the cameras, and makes it easier to compare the camera data against other diagnostic signals.

An agreable off-shoot of the technique is that it produces interesting images, as seen in the image above (photo credit: CCFE).

Read the original story here.

1st segments of the cryostat lower cylinder en route
13 Feb 2017
On 30 January, six large steel elements of the ITER cryostat left the port of Hazira, India for their one-month voyage to ITER.

These are the first segments of the cryostat lower cylinder (tier 1). On site at ITER, assembly activities (welding, testing) for the cryostat base have been underway since September 2016

 

Update available to 360° ITER site tour
13 Feb 2017
A lot has happened on the construction platform since the ITER 360° virtual tour was released to the website last year with an October data set.

The first ground-level walls of the Tokamak Complex are now visible from afar, the circular bioshield dominates in the centre, and two new buildingsone for radiofrequency heating and the other for cryogenicsare now completely framed out. Elsewhere on site, excavation and early foundation works are underway and the first activities to energize the 400 kV electrical switchyard have been carried out.

The best way to catch up on recent progress is to open the January 2017 update of the 360° virtual tour.

Click here or visit the homepage of the ITER website.

EUROfusion statement on Brexatom
07 Feb 2017
In a recent statement to parliament, the UK government confirmed that—as part of withdrawal from the European Union—the UK would also withdraw from the Euratom Treaty.

On 27 January EUROfusion, which manages European fusion research activities (including the exploitation of the JET tokamak) on behalf of Euratom, issued the following statement: 

Although the withdrawal from Euratom brings in uncertainty to the future of the Joint European Torus (JET), EUROfusion's flagship experiment located at the Culham Center of Fusion Energy (CCFE) in Oxfordshire, the UK government has indicated strong interest in continuing collaboration in nuclear research. "The UK is a world leader in nuclear research and development and there is no intention to reduce our ambition in this important area. The UK fully recognises the importance of international collaboration in nuclear research and development and we will ensure this continues by seeking alternative arrangements," the government said in the statement.

[...] Researchers, engineers and technicians working at JET come from all over Europe, and currently, JET operations receive funding of €69 million, 87.5 percent of which is provided by the European Commission and 12.5 percent by the UK. It is the only existing fusion device capable of operating with the deuterium-tritium fuel, which will be the fusion fuel of the future. And, experiments carried out at JET are important foundations to the fusion experiment ITER, which is currently being built in Cadarache, France. "Naturally, the European fusion community is extremely interested to see a continuation of the JET programme," says Prof. Donné, EUROfusion program manager.

Please see the full statement on the EUROfusion website.

9th ITER International School
06 Feb 2017
Aix-Marseille University and the ITER Organization are pleased to announce the 9th ITER International School which will be held in Aix-en-Provence, France, from 20-24 March 2017.

This school, held annually either near ITER or in one of the ITER Members, aims at preparing young researchers to tackle the challenges of magnetic fusion devices, and spreading the global knowledge required for a timely and competent exploitation of the ITER physics potential.

This year, the summer school will cover the physics of disruptions and controlone of the key issues for the ITER reactor and burning plasmas in general. Lectures and specialized seminars will cover current developments in theory and experiments, but are also intended to give the basics of the field. Poster sessions allowing participants to show their work are planned. The 2017 ITER school will be a good opportunity for reviewing the recent progresses in this field and promoting the interaction between different branches of plasma physics, computational physics and applied mathematics.

The course is open to PhD students and postdocs aiming to work in the field of magnetically confined fusion, as well as Master students in physics or engineering.

Registration ends on 7 March 2017. For more information, please visit the website.

Editor's note: The first ITER school was organized in July 2007 in Aix-en-Provence, France, and was focused on turbulent transport in fusion plasmas. Five different editions have followed, focused on different subjects: in 2008 in Fukuoka, Japan (magnetic confinement); in 2009 in Aix-en-Provence, France (plasma-surface interaction); in 2010 in Austin, Texas (Magneto-Hydro-Dynamics); in 2011 in Aix-en-Provence (energetic particles); in 2012 in Ahmedabad, India (radio-frequency heating), in 2014 in Aix-en-Provence (high performance computing in fusion science); and in 2016 in Hefei, China (transport and pedestal physics in tokamaks).

Looking for a high-alloy needle in the haystack
30 Jan 2017
Could high-entropy alloys—a combination of different metals in roughly equal concentration—turn out to be THE material for fusion reactors? That's the question materials physicists from the University of Helsinki (Finland) and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US) are investigating.

The concept behind the creation of these alloys is ten years old and was first proposed by metallurgists. But based on work done at Oak Ridge, where these new hybrid metals were being tested under the influence of radiation, researchers in Finland began running experiments and simulations using different mixtures with nickel.

High-entropy alloys appear to be much more resistant to radiation than pure alloys. To date, the labs at Oak Ridge and the University of Helsinki have just combined two, three or four elements, whereas millions of possible combinations exist.

See the report on the EUROfusion website.

The Welding Institute visits ITER
23 Jan 2017
Specialists from The Welding Institute (TWI) in the United Kingdom visited ITER on 18 January to deliver a workshop to over 70 attendees from across the organization.

Overviews were given on different welding, joining and inspection techniques as well as the benefits and services available to ITER as corporate members of the TWI. Details of previous case studies carried out for both the ITER Organization and the European Domestic Agency were provided to demonstrate the large portfolio of services that can be called on.

During the open discussions there was particular interest from a number of ITER divisions in the potential use of ultrasonic inspection for both thin wall pipes and thick-section plates as an alternative to radiography; auditing of potential/in-contract suppliers; and third party manufacturing process review capabilities. Follow up meetings and initiatives on these and other subjects are anticipated to address the challenging, state of the art manufacturing processes required both at suppliers and on-site to enable the construction and assembly of ITER.

--Paul Edwards, ITER mechanical engineer/blanket manifolds

New member for the EUROfusion consortium
23 Jan 2017
The EUROfusion consortium welcomed its 30th member in January: Ukraine.

The Ukrainian signatory is the Kharkov Institute for Physics and Technology (KIPT), acting as coordinator for fusion research in seven national universities and research institutes. Fusion infrastructure in Ukraine includes two stellarators and two plasma accelerators, with particular expertise in the areas of plasma-facing components, materials, stellarator research and diagnostics.

The EUROfusion consortium coordinates work within the EUROfusion roadmap, which breaks down the path to the realization of fusion energy into specifically defined missions. Thirty research organizations and universities from 26 European countries plus Switzerland are now members; in addition about 100 Third Parties contribute to the research activities through the consortium members.

EUROfusion collaborates with the European Domestic Agency for ITER and intensively supports the ITER Organization.

Read the full story and find out more about EUROfusion and the European roadmap here.

New issue of ASDEX Upgrade newsletter
16 Jan 2017
The latest newsletter from the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak team in Germany reviews the improvements that were made in 2016 to the machine's in-vessel components and heating systems, discusses plans for the 2017 experimental campaign, and highlights the importance ASDEX operation to the achievement of Europe's Roadmap to the Realisation of Fusion Energy.

ASDEX Upgrade, in addition to contributing to the knowledge basis required to operate ITER, is focusing increasingly on issues relevent to DEMO, the next-step fusion device.

Read the December issue of the ASDEX Upgrade here.

ITER-like vertical stabilization system tested on EAST tokamak
16 Jan 2017
At the EAST tokamak in China, five Italian scientists recently joined their Chinese colleagues to participate in a week-long experiment aimed at testing a voltage-driven vertical stabilization system. The successful tests, carried out in the framework of a joint ASIPP-CREATE-ENEA collaboration, were a key step on the way to MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) control of advanced tokamak configurations, capable of decoupling shape control from vertical stabilization.

The new vertical stabilization system implemented and tested on EAST is identical to the one proposed for ITER, and these first tests show that it is compatible with the installation a new ITER-like multivariable shape controller for advanced configurations.

Read more on the ASIPP website.

Logistics provider DAHER to run new distribution centre
09 Jan 2017
In 2012 the ITER Organization retained the European company DAHER to provide global transport, logistic and insurance services for the transport of components from supplier factories to the ITER site.

Since that date, DAHER has worked with all ITER Members on their transport needs, including the transport of exceptionally sized loads. The company manages all ITER logistics operations from a control room established in Marignane, France, close to the international airport that services the Marseille region.

In November 2016, the ITER Organization strengthened its ongoing relationship with DAHER with the signature of a new framework contract for the establishment and management of a central distribution centre located at the arrival port for all components shipped by sea (Fos-sur-Mer, France).

A warehouse space of 12,000 m2 has been fully refitted for ITER component storage. The central distribution centre will allow DAHER to match the rhythm of component deliveries to ITER's assembly needs.

Read the DAHER press release here.

Supercomputer in Japan used for plasma edge simulation
09 Jan 2017
Precise conditions are necessary to achieve fusion reactions inside of a high-temperature plasma. In addition to raising the temperature and the density in the core region of the plasma, which is confined by strong magnetic field, it is also necessary to control the edge region to prevent particles from moving in the direction of the vessel wall. 

A precise understanding of this edge region of the plasma—and accurate predictions of its behaviour—is one of the important topics of fusion research around the world.

At the National Institute of Fusion Science (NIFS) in Japan, two researchers have succeeded in running a micro-level simulation of a plasma "blob" in the edge region by using their institute's Plasma Simulator supercomputer.

By marrying the supercomputer's computational capacity with a newly developed calculation program, they were able to calculate the movement of one billion particles. Their research results advance the understanding of the behaviour of the plasma edge and improve prediction accuracy.

See the full article on EurekAlert!/AAAS.

2016

Fusion issue of "Europhysics News"
16 Dec 2016
Europhysics News has produced a special issue on nuclear fusion and plasma physics (Volume 47/No 5-6, September-December 2016).

The issue describes the state of fusion research in Europe, how ITER fits into the long-terms goals, and plans for the demonstration reactor after ITER (DEMO).

Highlights include contributions by the head ITER Organization's Science & Operations Department, David Campbell; EUROfusion's Tonny Donné; L.D. Horton from the JET tokamak; and Thomas Klinger from the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator program.

The full issue is available for download on the Europhysics News website.

 

Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award
16 Dec 2016
Stefan Gerhardt (left), principal research physicist and head of experimental operations on the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in the US, has won the Fusion Power Associates 2016 Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award.

The honour, given by directors of the research and educational foundation, recognizes "persons in the relatively early part of their careers who have shown both technical accomplishment and potential to become exceptionally influential leaders in the fusion field." The award was presented on 13 December at the 37th annual meeting of the Fusion Power Associates. 

The group's board of directors cited Gerhardt's "many scientific contributions," including his "recent work on predicting plasma disruptions, which will provide major benefit to ITER and other major fusion experiments, and the leadership you provided and are providing."

Read the full announcement on the PPPL website.

Rehearsing for the big performance at JET
12 Dec 2016
Even the greatest performers need rehearsals ... and JET is no exception. Scientists and engineers at the world's largest operating tokamak have been preparing for JET's next starring role — a run of tests using the high-power fuel mixture of deuterium and tritium (D-T).

The deuterium-tritium combination is the one that will be used to gain maximum fusion output in ITER and in the first fusion power stations that will follow it. JET is the only present-day fusion machine that can use tritium and therefore has a vital role in preparing for ITER operations.

As a radioactive substance, and one that is in short supply, tritium is not used very often at JET. Most research is carried out with deuterium only (the last operations with tritium were in 2003). However new campaigns of both T-T and D-T experiments are planned in 2018 and 2019 to give the best simulation yet of how fusion plasmas will perform in ITER.

The D-T rehearsal at JET during this summer and autumn aimed to simulate the operating environment for the tritium campaigns. With 13 years since the last tritium experiments, many of the systems and the people working on them have changed. The rehearsal was an ideal opportunity to test procedures for using tritium, train staff and iron out any flaws ahead of the real thing.

See video interviews on the rehearsal experience at CCFE (Culham Centre for Fusion Energy).

FOM to tame the flame
12 Dec 2016
The FOM Institute DIFFER, in the Netherlands, is starting a large research program to investigate one of the most fundamental difficulties in designing the fusion reactors of the future—how to protect the solid vessel from the intense heat and neutron bombardment of the reaction, especially in the divertor region which "exhausts" the plasma.

The research program "Taming the Flame" is supported by strategic funding from Foundation FOM (Fundamental research On Matter).

Nine new researchers (seven PhD positions and two postdoc positions) will be recruited to work in an integrated approach together with DIFFER's existing scientific staff. 

"In a fusion power plant, even a sturdy metal wall with a high melting point will not be able to resist the plasma," says DIFFER's head of fusion research Marco de Baar. "In our research program, we want to already start managing the heat load inside the plasma, and bring the energy to the wall in a controlled way." The research will focus on controlling and diluting the plasma before it reaches the wall, and on the novel concept of a self-repairing exhaust wall, with a liquid metal layer flowing over and protecting the solid reactor wall.

A key experiment in the program is DIFFER's linear plasma generator Magnum-PSI, the only laboratory facility in the world capable of examining materials exposed to the intense plasma conditions at the walls of future fusion reactors. In addition, the team will test their research at existing fusion experiments in Germany, Switzerland and the UK.

Read the full press release on the DIFFER website.

Basement tanks on order for Tritium Plant
05 Dec 2016
The European Domestic Agency for ITER has awarded a contract to Equipos Nucleares SA (ENSA, Spain) for the supply of two holding tanks and two feeding tanks for ITER's water detritiation system. When manufactured and installed in the basement of the Tritium Plant, they will join six other tanks, also supplied by Europe, that were installed earlier in the year.

The water detritiation system at ITER will remove tritium from process water during plant operation and recycle it as fuel.

See the news here.

Walking through JET's vacuum vessel
05 Dec 2016
For the first time in twenty years, a tokamak will experiment with nuclear plasmas. Ian Chapman, the recently appointed UKAEA Chief Executive confirmed in a Newsline interview that "JET will be operating with tritium again in 2018, and then operating with a deuterium-tritium mix in 2019."

This video takes you into the innards of the European machine, which is presently the largest in the world.

WEST in starting monoblocks
28 Nov 2016
After four years of non-stop work, the French tokamak Tore Supra has now become WEST,the tungsten (W) Environment Steady-state Tokamak. Equipped with an actively cooled tungsten divertor and additional power, experiments at WEST will provide precious data on operation in a tungsten environment in advance of ITER operation.

Considerable modification to the machine's internal elements has been carried out. New components have all been installed in the vacuum vessel (divertor coil windings, protection panels, antennas, diagnostics, tungsten plasma-facing components) and the chamber has now been closed for final commissioning before plasma operation.

The transformation mobilized more than one hundred people: staff from the Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (CEA-IRFM) and also WEST partners, in particular Chinese and Indian on-site collaborators.

Following the upcoming divertor coil impregnation and integrated commissioning, WEST will embark on its scientific life focused on the preparation of ITER divertor operation.

Photo © Christophe Roux-CEA

More on this story in the November issue of the WEST Newsletter.

 

Well-earned pause in activity for the JET tokamak
28 Nov 2016
The 2015-2016 experimental campaign at the JET tokamak, Europe's flagship device, came to an end on 15 November with nearly all goals met, according to a recent article published on the EUROfusion website.

Highlights included rehearsing the procedures for future tritium-tritium and deuterium-tritium experiments; running a hydrogen campaign during which physicists learned about the dependence of plasma parameters on the mass of the hydrogen fuel used; and the high-power deuterium campaign. 

This success means that JET is right on track for the tritium-tritium and deuterium-tritium experiments planned for upcoming campaigns, which are expected to provide important results for the operation of ITER.

JET will restart operations in 2017.

Read the full article on the EUROfusion website.

Quadrillions of calculations per second for fusion
21 Nov 2016
The Radiation Transport Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has won a prestigious award through the US DOE Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program for radiation shielding model for ITER.

The project, titled "Safe fusion energy: predictively modeling ITER radiation shielding," has been awarded 80 million computer processor hours on the Titan Cray XK7, the most powerful supercomputer in the US for open science.

INCITE awards are given annually to projects that represent "the biggest challenges in science and engineering today, and can't be done anywhere else."

Investigators Seth Johnson, Thomas Evans, and Stephen Wilson propose a radical solution for accurately modelling ITER's shielding design at an unprecedented level of detail and scale.

Read more about the INCITE program and the 2016 winners here.

First deliveries for centralized piping procurement
14 Nov 2016
Less than one year ago, last December, the ITER Organization signed a large supply contract with W. Schulz GmbH in Germany for the procurement of piping materials. The scope covers up to 65 km (1,800 tonnes) of pipes and 43,000 units (250 tonnes) of fittings. 

The first shipment of pipes and fittings under this contract was delivered late October to the ITER worksite. It was the inaugural delivery of a broad ITER Organization-Domestic Agency program for the centralized procurement of piping materials for the component (CCWS), chilled (CHWS), and tokamak cooling water systems, expected to play out over five years.

Thirty-three tonnes of material were delivered, including 450 metres of stainless steel seamless pipes and 350 stainless steel fittings such as tees, elbows and reducers. The material will be stored in ITER's largest warehouse on site until needed for installation.

 

Plasma movement at 100,000 frames per second
14 Nov 2016
Some of the most detailed images ever of a hot plasma inside a tokamak have been captured at MAST, the spherical tokamak device at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in the UK.

At 100,000 frames per second, the movies from the MAST device give a vivid illustration of how tokamaks keep fusion fuel trapped in a magnetic cage, with particles moving around magnetic field lines and resembling a large spinning ball of wool.

If only it were that simple; in reality, a magnetically-confined plasma is a highly complex system, and predicting how it behaves is key to making nuclear fusion a viable energy source. In particular, knowing how the hot fuel affects the cold walls of the machine is integral to ensuring that future reactors survive.

Turbulence in the magnetic field throws out wispy bunches of particles—known as filaments—from the plasma in a seemingly random fashion, ejecting fuel which touches the surfaces of the tokamak. Researchers are now working to unravel meaning within this randomness to understand this complex interaction with the machine walls, and videos such as these can give them pointers to what is happening.

Nick Walkden of CCFE's Theory & Modelling Department, who produced the videos, explains: "We believe that filaments are a vital part of the 'exhaust process' within a tokamak—how particles are expelled from the plasma. Seeing the MAST plasma at this unprecedented level of detail enables us to image individual filaments and measure their size, velocity and position within the plasma. It tells us a lot about their physics so we can find out how to predict their motion and, in future experiments, possibly learn to control them."

Read the full article at CCFE

Rich Hawryluk will chair the editorial board of "Nuclear Fusion"
14 Nov 2016
Physicist Richard Hawryluk of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has been named chair of the board of editors of Nuclear Fusion.

Current head of the ITER and Tokamaks Department at PPPL and former Deputy Director-General of Administration at ITER, Hawryluk has been a member of the editorial board at Nuclear Fusion since 2009. In his new role as chair he will provide policy oversight and support to the journal's editor.

From 1991 to 1997 he headed the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) project, the only magnetic confinement fusion experiment in the US to have operated on a high-power mix of deuterium and tritium. He was also deputy director of PPPL lab from 1997 to 2009, before taking over the running of the ITER and Tokamaks Department.

Members of the European Parliament at ITER
07 Nov 2016
Europe is responsible for the largest portion of ITER construction costs (45.6 percent); the remainder is shared equally by China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the US (9.1 percent each). 

On 24 October, six Members of the Industry, Research and Energy Committee of the European Parliament spent the day at ITER, meeting the ITER Director-General, visiting the design offices and the construction site, and exchanging with staff and contractors from the European agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy on project progress and upcoming milestones.

Read the full article on the European Domestic Agency website.

NSTX-U spherical tokamak: first results
07 Nov 2016
Following a four-year upgrade to double the magnetic field strength, plasma current and heating power capability of the NSTX spherical tokamak, located at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in the US, researchers reported on the first ten-week operational campaign at the recent IAEA Fusion Energy Conference in Kyoto, Japan.

Important results included increased pulse duration and maximum magnetic field strength; achievement of the optimum H-mode regime; success in reducing plasma instabilities through a second neutral beam injector; and commissioning all magnetic diagnostics.

Read the full report at PPPL.

In memoriam: physicist Paul Vandenplas
02 Nov 2016
Professor Paul Vandenplas, emeritus professor of the Royal Military Academy in Brussels, Belgium and longtime proponent of nuclear fusion, has passed away at age 84.

In the course of his illustrious career he was director of the association "EURATOM-Belgian State" for controlled nuclear fusion; acted in the role of president of the EURATOM Fusion programme committee and vice-president of its advisory committee; served on the governing board of the JET tokamak; and played a role in the site negotiations for the ITER Project. He was also the director/founder of the Laboaratory for Plasma Physics ERM/KMS

In 2014 he was honoured for his contributions to fusion research with the Minerva Prize (Förderverein Museum Jülich e.V.). Professor Vandenplas was also Grand officer of the Order of the Crown, Officer and Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold II, and Knight.

Australian Parliament: on Australia and ITER
26 Oct 2016
One month ago, on 30 September, the ITER Organization signed a technical Cooperation Agreement with Australia, as represented by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). ANSTO CEO Adi Paterson had the opportunity to report on the Agreement to the Australian Parliament on 20 October. See the official recording here (Senate Economics Legislation Committee, 15:07:00).

Newsletter launched by Dutch research institute DIFFER
25 Oct 2016
At the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER) research focuses on two major energy themes: fusion energy, and the conversion and storage of sustainable energy in solar fuels. In this first issue of the DIFFER newsletter EXPLORE, launched in October, read all about the different experiments underway.

October flyover by drone
24 Oct 2016
The European Domestic Agency has published a short flyover of the ITER worksite that was filmed in early October.

Click here to see the latest progress on the Tokamak Complex and the work that is advancing on the ITER Cryoplant Building, the cooling tower area, and the Magnet Power Conversion Building area.

Fusion Energy Conference opens in Kyoto
17 Oct 2016
The 26th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference kicked off today in Kyoto, Japan.

The biennial rendezvous for fusion researchers from over 40 countries, the conference aims to highlight worldwide advances in fusion theory, experimental results, technology, engineering, safety and socio-economics.

ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot spoke on the first day, presenting the progress in ITER construction, manufacturing and R&D to an audience of scientists, engineers, policy makers, and representatives of industry.

Over 1,000 visitors are expected during the six-day event, hosted this year by the Government of Japan and organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency in cooperation with the Japanese National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS).

At the ITER stand, visitors will have the occasion to experience a virtual reality tour of the ITER construction site (Oculus Rift) and admire a Lego tokamak designed and built by students from Kyoto University.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano (here with ITER's Julie Marcillat) was one of the first visitors to the ITER stand on Monday 17 October.

Gleaming beamlines for MAST Upgrade
17 Oct 2016
The Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) facility at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in the UK is undergoing a major upgrade that, once completed, will allow it to add to the knowledge base for ITER and experiment with candidate technological solutions for future fusion power reactors.

The upgrade will permit longer pulse lengths, improved neutral beam heating, and new features to improve plasma profile control and the study of plasma instabilities.

Recently, progress on the largest sub-system—neutral beam heating—was made as the internal components were installed into two neutral beam injector vacuum vessels. The team is now on schedule to have both beamlines finished by the end of the year.

More information here: CCFE

Mockup deck tests successfully at high voltage lab
14 Oct 2016
At a specialized laboratory in Germany, electrical tests have been successfully performed on a 1/15th scale mockup of the high voltage deck planned for MITICA, the ITER-sized neutral beam injector that will be tested in advance of installation on ITER at the PRIMA neutral beam test facility in Italy.

Positioned on four large gas-insulated columns at six metres above the floor, the 4 x 4 x 4 metre mockup was subjected to high voltage testing in order to validate the design choices of the European Domestic Agency supplier SIEMENS AG.

In a 24-hour period, the mockup passed one long-duration test (5 hours at 1.2 million volts DC) and several short-duration tests (impulses of 50 micro-seconds at 2.1 million volts). The tests were designed to verify that the deck will sustain the different voltage levels that are expected during MITICA operation.

Read more about the high voltage tests on the European Domestic Agency website. For more on PRIMA, click here.

Neutrons for DEMO
10 Oct 2016
A new acronym is making its way into the fusion landscape: DONES, for DEMO Oriented Neutron Source.

In Europe, a roadmap* for the realization of fusion energy was published in 2012 that breaks down the quest to supply fusion electricity to the grid into eight missions. One of these is to investigate and select neutron-resistant materials for DEMO, the demonstration fusion reactor that—according to the European strategy—is the step between ITER and a commercial fusion power plant.

More powerful than ITER and connected to the grid, DEMO will require materials capable of withstanding a stronger flux of neutrons for longer periods.

Currently three R&D projects carried out with the framework of a scientific collaboration between Europe and Japan (the Broader Approach) are contributing to the design of DEMO. The engineering design and validation activities for the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF/EVEDA) are evolving successfully. But when its operation will come to an end, DONES, a future version of IFMIF, will take over and help the scientific community to perform tests and start collecting data.

Designed to mimic the conditions of neutron irradiation in DEMO, DONES would allow scientists to test materials and characterize candidate fusion materials.

Three European countries—Croatia, Poland and Spain—have expressed interest in hosting the facility. In September, the European Domestic Agency for ITER, which acts as a coordinator for the European activities of the Broader Approach, invited representatives from all three to a technical information session in Barcelona to explain the scope of DONES, outline preliminary technical specifications, and discuss the different steps leading to the submission of applications.

Read the full article on the European Domestic Agency website.

*The "Roadmap to the realisation of fusion energy" was published by EFDA (the European Fusion Development Agreement, superseded in 2014 by EUROfusion).

Timelapse of coil manufacturing activities on site
10 Oct 2016
In the Poloidal Field Coil Winding Facility, on site at ITER, fabrication of a qualification mockup of poloidal field coil #5 (17 metres in diameter) began in September.

Click here to view a timelapse video produced by the European Domestic Agency for ITER. More information on the manufacturing process here.

The making of poloidal field coil #1
03 Oct 2016
At the Srednenevsky shipyard, on the Neva River near Saint Petersburg (Russia), manufacturing work is underway on ITER's poloidal field coil, #1 (PF1).

Click here to view the different stages of fabrication of this 200-tonne component, the smallest of ITER's six ring-shaped magnets. (ITER Russia)

 

ITER Japan makes book donation
03 Oct 2016
The Japanese Domestic Agency has delivered a large number of books and teaching materials to the Japanese section of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur International School (EIPACA), which caters to the families of ITER staff as well as to the regional population.

This is the third book donation made by ITER Japan to the Japanese language section and its pupils since the school opened in 2007. The school currently hosts six language sections (Chinese, English, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish), where teaching is divided between the host language (French) and the language of the section.

The books were presented in a ceremony on 30 September by the head of the ITER Japan Liaison Office, Katsumi Nakajima, to school director Bernard Fronsacq.

Learn plasma physics, on line
03 Oct 2016
For the third year in a row, the Swiss Plasma Center is offering a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on plasma physics.

The popular class is divided into two parts--the basics of plasma physics, followed by applications of plasma physics (including fusion). Students can follow the segment sequentially, at their own pace, or begin with the more advanced course.

The class, which begins on 13 October, is given in English by plasma physicists from the Swiss Plasma Center.

More information here.

Princeton lab director steps down
26 Sep 2016
Prof. Stewart Prager, a world-renowned plasma physicist and passionate voice for a future of clean, abundant and benign energy fueled by fusion, has stepped down from the directorship of the national laboratory he has headed for the last eight years. [...]

Prager, the sixth director in the 65-year history of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), joined the lab in the fall of 2008 after a long career at the University of Wisconsin. A pioneer in plasma physics, he is internationally known for experiments that contribute to the fundamental knowledge of fusion energy and the design of devices that will produce it.

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

Last shipment for the cryostat base
26 Sep 2016
The last shipment of cryostat base segments (three segments/120 tonnes each) left Hazira, India on 2 September. Prior to being shipped, on 16 August, a flag-off ceremony was held at the Larsen & Toubro Ltd plant, where the cryostat segments are being manufactured. With this shipment, due to reach France after a month-long sea journey, India has completed shipment of all major pieces of the cryostat base (tier-1 and tier-2). Welding operations for Tier 1 of the cryostat base have already begun on the ITER site.

A computing powerhouse turns on in Italy
19 Sep 2016
Marconi-Fusion, the new high performance computer for fusion applications, was inaugurated on 14 September 2016 at the CINECA headquarters in Bologna.

Supercomputing is an important aspect of nuclear fusion research as it plays a crucial role in the modelling of the plasma and materials, validating the experimental results of fusion devices and designing the next-generation fusion machine DEMO. Marconi Fusion should be capable of a total computational power of around 6 petaflop per second, thanks to the modern generation of Intel Xeon processors. A petaflop means 1015 operations per second... a total of a one quadrillion head-spinning calculations simutaneously. 

The goal of this system will be to provide a common high performance computing platform for European fusion researchers.

In 2015 EUROfusion's highest decision-making body, the General Assembly, selected the Italian research unit ENEA along with CINECA, the largest Italian computing centre, to develop and run the new system.

The supercomputer was named after Guglielmo Giovanni Marconi, the inventor of wireless communication, who was born in Bologna in 1874. 

Source: EUROfusion

Summer school: diagnostics for ITER and DEMO
19 Sep 2016
From 28 April to 4 May 2017, the Ettore Majorana Foundation in Erice, Sicily, will host the 16th edition of the International School of Fusion Reactor Technology (ISFRT16).

The course will cover areas of interest to the magnetic fusion confinement (tokamak, stellarators), inertial confinement, and plasma physics scientific communities, with particular focus on developments in diagnostics and technology in view of ITER and the machine that comes after ITER, DEMO.

ISFRT16 is open in particular to students and researchers wishing to enter this new field. Lectures will cover current developments in theory and experiments but are also intended to give the basics of the field. Poster sessions are planned to allow participants to show their work.

Registration ends on 28 February 2017. More information on the conference website.

Manufacturing milestone in Russia
15 Sep 2016
At the Srednenevsky Shipbuilding Plant in Russia, technicians have completed the winding operations for the first poloidal field double pancake—one of eight double pancakes that will be stacked to form ITER's smallest ring magnet, poloidal field coil 1 (PF1).

During the next stage in the manufacturing process, the completed pancake will be impregnated with epoxy resin. The resin hardens the glass tape that is wrapped around the conductor to bind the double pancake into a rigid assembly. Following the successful manufacturing readiness review for the technique, called vacuum-pressure impregnation, impregnation activities on the first PF1 pancake will begin in October.

ITER's poloidal field coils are fabricated from niobium-titanium superconductor, which becomes superconducting at super-low temperatures.

Of ITER's six poloidal field coils, PF1 is the first to proceed to the impregnation stage of the fabrication process, which involves winding and impregnating each double pancake before forming the final assembly.

More on the poloidal field magnets here.

Image: The winding table at the Srednenevsky Shipbuilding Plant.

Steel to capture the sun
13 Sep 2016
Temperatures of over hundred million degrees centigrade and high energy neutrons and alpha particles that blast everything to shreds. What materials can withstand the harsh conditions in fusion reactors? TU Delft researcher Inês Carvalho set out to discover.

Follow this link to the article.

Source: Technische Universiteit Delft.

Crowd comes out for the 2016 ITER Games
12 Sep 2016
On Saturday 10 September, close to 450 participants met near ITER, in Vinon-sur-Verdon, for a number of sporting events designed to create and reinforce ties between people working on the ITER Project and neighbours from the surrounding villages. The 2016 edition of the ITER Games offered a broad choice of sporting disciplines for all levels, including football, cross-country running, mountain biking, kayaking, tennis and petanque. The competitions were followed by a bucolic lunch and an afternoon of family activities.

Massive transformers ready for shipment
12 Sep 2016
The last of three electrical transformers have successfully passed factory acceptance tests in China and are ready for shipment.

China is responsible for procuring ITER's pulsed power electrical network (PPEN), which will feed power to the heating and control systems during plasma pulses.

As part of the procurement package, three massive PPEN transformers (15 metres tall, 460 tonnes when completely fitted out) have been manufactured by supplier Baodin Tianwei. The first of these reached the ITER site in June 2016; now, following the successful completion of factory acceptance tests, the last two are ready for shipment.

--ITER China

China-Japan-Korea collaboration meeting
05 Sep 2016
For the third year in a row, representatives of the ITER Domestic Agencies of China, Japan and Korea met to report on progress in the procurement and manufacturing of ITER components and exchange on technical issues. Nearly 60 participants were present for the workshop which was held from 27 to 28 July at the Haeundae Grand Hotel in Busan, Korea.

Openings made by representatives from each government were followed by reports on manufacturing progress achieved since the last trilateral meeting, including progress on components for the ITER blanket, the divertor, the test blanket systems, magnets, the vacuum vessel and diagnostics. Focus discussions took place on forward-looking topics such as warranty after delivery, on-site installation work at ITER and the potential for further collaboration.

Participants also visited the Hyundai Heavy Industry workshop (pictured) in Ulsan, Korea, where manufacturing is underway on segments of the ITER vacuum vessel and toroidal field coil structures.

A fourth China-Japan-Korea trilateral workshop is planned next year in China.

Princeton fusion lab goes EAST
05 Sep 2016
The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has been named principal investigator for a multi-institutional project to study plasma-materials interaction on the EAST tokamak in China. The experiments will be designed to test the ability of lithium to protect the EAST walls from the hot plasma and to prevent impurities from bouncing back into the core of the plasma and halting fusion reactions.

Success could point to a method for optimizing long-running plasmas.

PPPL will use devices called flowing liquid lithium limiters and granule injectors, as well as optimization of coating techniques, to protect the plasma-facing components. PPPL has experience with applying lithium to its National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX), which has recently been upgraded, and at the Lithium Tokamak Experiment (LTX), a small, short-pulse complementary experiment at the laboratory that explores the effect of a liquid-lithium boundary on the plasma.

See the full article on the PPPL website.

--Photo of the interior of EAST vacuum vessel.

Chirping: not a desirable quality in plasmas
02 Sep 2016
"Chirp, chirp, chirp." The familiar sound of birds is also what researchers call a wave in plasma that breaks from a single note into rapidly changing notes. This behaviour can cause heat in the form of high energy particles—or fast ions—to leak from the core of plasma inside tokamaks.

Physicists want to prevent these waves from chirping because they may cause too many fast ions to escape, cooling the plasma. As the plasma cools, the atomic nuclei in the tokamak are less likely to come together and release energy and the fusion reactions will sputter to a halt. 

"Chirping modes can be very harmful because they can steal energy from the fast ions in an extended region of the plasma," said Vinícius Duarte, a graduate student from the University of São Paulo. Duarte is at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) conducting research for his dissertation. 

Chirping modes have been studied for decades as physicists seek to understand and eliminate them. In a recent theoretical study, Duarte discovered some conditions within plasma that can make the chirping of modes more likely. A paper he is preparing on this topic explains the phenomenon and may help to optimize the design of fusion energy plants in the future. 

See the full article on the PPPL website.

New books on magnetic fusion energy and plasma physics
30 Aug 2016
Magnetic fusion energy and the plasma physics that underlies it are the topics of ambitious new books by Hutch Neilson, head of the Advanced Projects Department at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (US), and Amitava Bhattacharjee, head of the Theory Department at the Laboratory. 

The books describe where research on magnetic fusion energy comes from and where it is going, and provide a basic understanding of the physics of plasma, the fourth state of matter that makes up 99 percent of the visible universe.

The volume Magnetic Fusion Energy: From Experiments to Power Plants, edited by Neilson and published in June, introduces early career researchers to the current body of fusion work and points the way to breakthroughs still to be achieved. Bhattacharjee's book, the second edition of the text Introduction to Plasma Physics co-authored with Donald A. Gurnett of the University of Iowa, keeps pace with the fast- and ever-changing field. New topics in the book, which will be out this fall, range from tearing modes in fusion plasmas to particle acceleration by shocks to the magnetorotational instability in accretion disks that surround celestial bodies.

See the original announcement here.

Quest Magazine: Here comes the Sun
03 Aug 2016
The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has just released the annual edition of Quest, the laboratory's research magazine. This fourth edition highlights research underway on the recently upgraded spherical tokamak experiment NSTX-U.

Download the summer 2016 edition here.

Using plasmas to create nanomaterials
18 Jul 2016
Plasma—the hot ionized gas that fuels fusion reactions—can also create super-small particles used in everything from pharmaceuticals to tennis racquets. These nanoparticles, which measure billionths of a metre in size, can revolutionize fields from electronics to energy supply ... but scientists must first determine how best to produce them.

After more than two years of planning and construction, the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has commissioned a major new facility to explore ways to optimize plasma for the production of such particles. The collaborative facility, called the Laboratory for Plasma Nanosynthesis, is nearly three times the size of the original nanolab, which remains in operation, and launches a new era in PPPL research on plasma nanosynthesis. Experiments and simulations that could lead to new methods for creating high-quality nanomaterials at relatively low cost can now proceed at an accelerated pace.

Nanomaterials exhibit remarkable strength, flexibility and electrical conductivity. Carbon nanotubes, found in sporting goods, body armor, transistors and countless other products, are tens of thousands of times thinner than a human hair and stronger than steel on an ounce-for-ounce basis.

Plasma could serve as an ideal substance for synthesizing, or producing, nanomaterial. The new laboratory will study so-called low-temperature plasmas that are tens of thousands degrees hot, compared with fusion plasmas that are hotter than the 15-million-degree core of the sun. These low-temperature plasmas contain atoms and free-floating electrons and atomic nuclei, or ions, that can be shaped by magnetic fields to provide reliable, predictable and low-cost synthesis of tailored nanoparticles.

Read the full article at PPPL.

-- Photo: Elle Starkman/PPPL

40 kgs of books for the International School
11 Jul 2016
A delegation led by Zhao Jing, deputy head of the Chinese Domestic Agency, delivered some 40 kgs of textbooks and teaching materials to the Chinese section of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur International School on Friday 8 July.  

Since its opening in September 2007, virtually all the children of ITER families and many local pupils of both European and non-European nationalities have attended the International School, which provides a bilingual curriculum. The school's pedagogical structure currently comprises six section languages (Chinese, English, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish), operating on the principle of parity (French language/section language). Furthermore, from the "collège" level (junior high school), the English speakers students can be enrolled in the English section of European teaching, where the courses are taught in English at 80%.

School director Bernard Fronsacq is pictured at centre.

Call for EUROfusion grants
11 Jul 2016
The call to send in proposals for the next round of EUROfusion Researcher Grants is now out. The deadline is 8 September 2016. Detailed information about eligibility and the selection procedure is available for download here.

A core function of EUROfusion, which manages and funds the European research activities, is to coordinate the training and education activities for European fusion research. The aim is to invest in building a strong fusion community that will not only continue to advance fusion research but also play a vital role in the future when fusion energy is realized. EUROfusion supports PhD and pre-doctoral candidates working on fusion research and has established research and engineering grants to fund the training of fusion engineers and scientists every year.

Two types of grants are offered: EUROfusion Research Grants, which support about ten post-doctoral researcher or equivalent for up to two years; and EUROfusion Engineering Grants, which provide funding for around 20 engineers for a period of three years.

Beryllium, from laboratory to practice
11 Jul 2016
The advanced technology that will be required in the pursuit of fusion energy will require the use of beryllium and other specialized, high-performance materials.

A few days before the 29th Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT 2016) opens in Prague this year, a group of specially chosen experts from the fields of science, technology, politics, economics, and media will gather in Berlin, Germany to discuss beryllium applications at BeYOND (Beryllium Opportunities for New Developments).

More information here.

On fusion in Europe
04 Jul 2016
The latest edition of Fusion in Europe is now available from EUROfusion, the consortium of 29 research organization and universities from 26 European countries plus Switzerland. Updates on the operational campaigns of three European tokamaks and one stellarator, upgrades underway on fusion devices in the UK and France, news from the world of materials research and high performance computing for fusion ... all this and more can be found in the June issue.

Visit the EUROfusion website here.

Cryoplant turbines ready
04 Jul 2016
Four turbines produced for ITER's liquid nitrogen (LN2) cryogenic plant have successfully passed factory acceptance testing and will be delivered to ITER this autumn.

One oil brake turbine and one turbine booster will be installed in each of the cold boxes of the LN2 plant, which is under European procurement.

The liquid nitrogen plant and auxiliary systems will cool down, process, store, transfer and recover the cryogenic fluids of the machine. Two nitrogen refrigerators will be delivered along with two 80 K helium loop boxes, warm and cold helium storage tanks, dryers, heaters and the helium purification system.

In spite of the small diameter of the turbines—not exceeding 15 cm—these tiny pieces of equipment will generate enough cooling power to keep the ITER thermal shields extremely cold. It took Air Liquide contractor Cryostar (France) eight months to complete fabrication.

Image: One turbine booster, fully assembled for factory testing.

See the original article on the European Domestic Agency website.

First Plasma in Costa Rica
04 Jul 2016
Latin America's first stellarator was officially inaugurated on 29 June 2016.

The small SRC-1 stellarator device was planned and built by the Plasma Laboratory for Fusion Energy and Applications, which belongs to the Costa Rica Institute of Technology (TEC) in Cartago.

The countdown for producing the first plasma was started by a high-ranking government representative from Costa Rica and the TEC President and was witnessed by guests from science and politics. Electronic congratulations had been sent by representatives of international stellarator research from Princeton (US) and IPP at Greifswald (Germany) to mark the advent of the new device.

"Our work is to serve future generations," stated Institute Director Iván Vargas. "If research like this continues to evolve, in the future this technology could be used at a power plant that would take alternative energy to our communities."

The Plasma Laboratory for Fusion Energy and Applications was founded six years ago. It covers the fields of plasma medicine, industrial plasma technology and fusion research. Work hitherto had been concentrated on the small MEDUSA-CR device (Madison Education Small Aspect ratio tokamak), which was taken over from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and on the preparation of the SCR-1 stellarator.

The investment costs for SCR-1 came to USD 500,000. The plasma vessel and modular coils were made in Costa Rica. The small device aims to attain plasma temperatures of 300,000 degrees Celsius. Latin America's first stellarator now joins the ranks of the stellarators in Australia, Germany, Japan, Spain and the USA.

Source: Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, IPP

Diagnostic meetings at the Budker Institute
27 Jun 2016
In June, the Budker Institute in Russia was host to two meetings on ITER diagnostics, with at least 70 international specialists attending.

The members of the Diagnostics Topical Group, ITPA (International Tokamak Physics Activity) met for the 30th time to discuss a range of internationally coordinated research areas that are important to the development of ITER and fusion diagnostic systems. Topics included progress on diagnostic mirrors, which must withstand conditions close to the high-temperature plasma; diagnostics for alpha particles; plasma wall reflections; and plasma control. In parallel, a meeting on port integration reunited several Russian organizations that are—like the Budker Institute—involved in the engineering integration of diagnostics into the ITER port plugs.

In addition to diagnostic engineering, the Budker Institute plays a key part in the development of high-tech electron equipment, research into the investigation of high-temperature plasma on first-wall materials, and the development, manufacturing, and testing of equipment for the ITER machine.

Michal Walsh, head of the Port Plugs & Diagnostics Integration Division at ITER, toured the host facilities in the company of the ITPA members. "Given the technical potential of this research centre and our successful cooperation to date, I look forward to continued cooperation in the future."

-- Alla Skovorodina, Budker Institute

Huge elements of the cryostat due this week
20 Jun 2016
Three additional ITER cryostat segments have arrived in the port of Fos-sur-Mer after a one-month voyage from India.

The 60° segments make up half of Tier 2 of the cryostat base (three other Tier 2 segments are due at a later date). The 120-tonne components have been unloaded in Fos in preparation for their delivery to the ITER site this week (weather permitting) along the ITER Itinerary.

Each 96-wheel transport trailer will carry a protected load that is just over 14 metres long and six metres wide.

Of space shuttles and divertors
20 Jun 2016
In a tokamak fusion reactor, the plasma causes intense heating of the divertor, similar to that encountered by a space shuttle when it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere. The belly of the shuttle must be protected by special heat tiles. In the same way, the divertor surface is made of small tungsten tiles that are tilted at a grazing angle with respect to the plasma stream. The edges of the tiles, like the nose and wings of the shuttle, are subject to very intense heat flux...

Read more on the shaping of the plasma-facing components, and many other subjects, in issue #13 of the WEST Newsletter.

At Cadarache (south of France), the Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (CEA/DSM/IRFM) is modifying the Tore Supra plasma facility to become a test platform open to all ITER partners. WEST stands for W (tungsten) Environment in Steady-state Tokamak. 

"A slice of the Sun": ITER on BBC Horizons
20 Jun 2016
"The proponents of fusion power have for years been promising us a plentiful and relatively safe form of new energy. Well here, at ITER in France, they are starting to make good on that promise."

So begins the 30-minute documentary film on ITER and fusion that aired this past weekend on BBC Horizons.

Presenter Adam Shaw visits ITER in the south of France as well as labs around the world (Germany, US and Canada) to learn more about the "tantalizing possibility" of fusion and its chance at transforming the world's relationship with energy. 

From outside the UK view the program here (inside the UK, watch here).

A home for the Sun
13 Jun 2016
With transparent skies and 300 days of sunshine a year, the tiny Alpine village of Saint-Véran (alt: 2,042 metres) offers a unique viewpoint on our own familiar fusion furnace. In the 1970s professional astronomers from the Observatoire de Paris used it to observe the Sun's corona with instruments they eventually donated to the village.

Walking in the scientists' footsteps, the local population soon developed a passion for solar astronomy—an amateur club was created, more instruments were acquired through donations and the municipality soon decided to capitalize on its privileged relationship with the Sun.

La Maison du Soleil was inaugurated on Thursday 9 June in the presence of French Vice-Minister for Higher Education and Research, Thierry Mandon, and of ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot.

Designed for the general public, La Maison du Soleil will organize exhibits, conferences and solar observations. Nuclear fusion and ITER are of course part of the permanent exhibit, with posters, panels ... and even a conductor sample provided by the ITER Magnets Division.

Saint-Véran is located in the heart of the Queyras Regional Park, two-and-a-half hours north of ITER.

Reference textbook on plasma physics re-edited
13 Jun 2016
The third edition of Introduction to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion by author Francis F. Chen is now available from Springer (follow this link). In addition to updates in all chapters, the 2016 release includes new chapters on special plasmas and plasma applications.

A recent Chinese version of the 1973 edition of the book is also available here.

What spin-offs from fusion research?
10 Jun 2016
While the fusion community continues its quest to harness fusion for energy needs, numerous spin-off benefits are resulting from the research carried out all over the world.

Given its complex, multidisciplinary nature, it should be no surprise that fusion research has driven advances in disciplines ranging from medical technology and environment to astrophysics and material sciences. EUROfusion, the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, has identified some of these spin-offs and put together a non-exhaustive list that demonstrates the short-term benefits of fusion research on the way to fusion electricity.

Read more about them on the EUROfusion website or download an infographic.

Tiny cameras for remote handling
10 Jun 2016
Two types of cameras will be needed inside of the ITER vacuum vessel to support inspection and maintenance operations—oversight cameras that give engineers a broad view inside the vacuum vessel, and cameras embedded on tooling or robotics for a view inside tightly confined spaces.

The European Domestic Agency for ITER is working with industry to develop purpose-built equipment small enough to fit into tight space constraints and capable of withstanding the harsh conditions close to the plasma.

In a project called FURHIS (for FUsion for Energy Radiation Hard Imaging System), Europe is collaborating with Oxford Technologies (UK) to produce mockups of sub-systems that will soon be tested in a radiation environment. Working with French laboratories ISAE (image sensors), CEA (LED illumination system), and Université Jean Monnet (optic system), a 15 mm mockup—small enough to fit inside a one euro coin—has been developed.

The FURHIS sub-systems will now be tested at the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK•CEN.

Read the original story on the European Domestic Agency website.

Loss of a pioneering plasma physicist
06 Jun 2016
Ronald C. Davidson, a pioneering plasma physicist for 50 years who directed the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) during a crucial period of its history and was a founding director of the Plasma Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), passed away on 19 May at his home in Cranbury, New Jersey. He was 74.

"Ron was an anchor for the Laboratory both through his science and through his wisdom," said Stewart Prager, director of PPPL. "His prodigious contributions not just to PPPL's science but also to plasma physics writ large are clear and widely known. Within the Laboratory, he was a mentor and a guide to people young and old. His impact within the Laboratory was enormous."

The physicist won numerous honours in his lifetime, including the prestigious James Clerk Maxwell Prize in Plasma Physics in 2008, the highest national honour in plasma physics. He was a fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Davidson was known as a prolific researcher, writer and academic.

Read the full-length obituary on the PPPL website.

Of cold boxes and presidents
06 Jun 2016
On the last day of her state visit to France, South Korea's President Park Geun-hye stopped in Grenoble, a city in the French Alps where she studied in the mid-1970s after graduating from South Korea's Sogang University.

Nostalgia wasn't the only reason for this last stop, however. The South Korean President wished to visit the Air Liquide plant in Sassenage, where hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are being developed in cooperation with the Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co.

Also of interest to President Park were the ITER cold boxes that are currently being equipped with internal components before integration into the ITER cryoplant.

One of the three ITER cold boxes (21 metres long, 4.2 metres in diameter) provided a spectacular background to the presentation of the company's activities by Xavier Vigor, Air Liquide advanced Technologies CEO. Also present were Benoît Potier, Air Liquide Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Pierre-Etienne Franc, Vice President of Advanced Business & Technologies.

It was the second time the ITER cold boxes were in presidential company: in August 2015 French President Hollande also made a stop at the Air Liquide plant and even signed cryoplant cold box number two ...

--Photo courtesy of Air Liquide

Click here for an article in the Korea Times and here to watch a video on French public TV.

Simulations support alternative plasma start technique
06 Jun 2016
New computer simulations at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) indicate that an innovate start-up technique for tokamaks, called coaxial helicity injection (CHI), may support a strong electric current without a traditional solenoid magnet.

In tokamaks, a complex web of magnetic fields control the superhot plasma. In addition to large D-shaped magnets surrounding the vacuum vessel, a central electromagnet known as a solenoid participates in creating the twisting vortex that prevents the plasma from touching the tokamak's walls.

Compact spherical tokamaks, like the NSTX-U recently dedicated at PPPL, as well as future tokamaks may not have room for solenoids. During CHI, magnetic field lines, or loops, are inserted into the tokamak's vessel through openings in the vessel floor. The field lines then expand to fill the vessel space, like a balloon inflating with air, until the loops undergo a process known as magnetic reconnection and snap closed. The newly formed closed field lines then induce current in the plasma.

"Can we create and sustain a big enough magnetic bubble in a tokamak to support a strong electric current without a solenoid?" asks Physicist Fatima Ebrahimi, who performed the computer simulations. "The findings indicate that 'yes, we can do it.'"

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

--Image: Physicist Fatima Ebrahimi

Tokamak upgrade project: moving the MAST vessel
06 Jun 2016
In line with a First Plasma in 2017, the 41-tonne vacuum vessel of the MAST Upgrade project was returned to its concrete-shielded home in late May, where it can now be refitted with its components and systems before commissioning.

The upgraded MAST tokamak will help to add to the knowledge base for ITER by experimenting with key plasma physics issues.

Watch a short video of the milestone on the website of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (UK).

Calling for nominations: 2016 Fusion Technology Award
30 May 2016
During the next Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE June 2017), Fusion Technology Awards will be presented for the years 2016 and 2017 to individuals who have made outstanding and innovative contributions to research and development in the field of fusion technology.

The Awards each consist of a USD 3,000 cash prize and a plaque. Any person, regardless of nationality or Society affiliation, is eligible for the award, with the exception that no current member of the IEEE/NPSS Standing Committee on Fusion Technology may be considered. The nomination package should be sent to IEEE Senior Member Martin Nieto-Perez (m.nieto@ieee.org), and it should consist of a nomination letter describing the technical and/or leadership contributions on which the nomination is recommended and a resume from the candidate.

The nomination deadline for the 2016 Award is 15 June 2016.

For more detailed information on eligibility, basis for judging, nomination process and a list of past Award recipients, please visit IEEE_NPSS.org and go to the "Fusion Technology Awards" section.

US in ITER "is in the best interest of the nation"
27 May 2016
In a report to the US Congress released on 26 May, the Department of Energy (DOE) recommends "that the US remain a partner in the ITER project through Fiscal Year 2018," at which time the country's participation in the project will need to be reassessed.

"At this time, our continued participation [...] is in the best interest of the nation," writes Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz in the introductory message to the report.

The 17-page report notes that "the management of the ITER Organization and the performance of the project have improved substantially" under Bernard Bigot's leadership. "The project is now being well-run."

However, "the improvements and performance, while promising, still require additional time to determine if they will be sustained and lead to the long-term success of the project."

Despite the accumulated delays "ITER remains the fastest path for the study of burning plasma," concludes the report.

Photo: Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz

Download the DOE report on US participation in ITER here.

ITER @ Atoms for the Future
26 May 2016
The ITER Organization will participate in this year's international symposium Atoms for the Future—the annual meeting of students and young professionals from the nuclear field (more information here). ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot will be among the speakers on 27 June 2016, and two days later students will have the possibility to visit the ITER site in southern France.

Registration for Atoms for the Future also gives you access to the World Nuclear Exhibition (28-30 June 2016) where the ITER Organization will be also be present.

Launch of newest US fusion experiment, NSTX-U
23 May 2016
US Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Ernest Moniz dedicated the most powerful spherical torus fusion facility in the world on 20 May 2016. The $94-million upgrade to the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX-U), funded by the DOE Office of Science, is a spherical tokamak fusion device that explores the creation of high-performance plasmas at 100-million degree temperatures.

NSTX-U at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) will allow researchers around the world to explore fusion reactions [...] "The vastly expanded capabilities of this spherical tokamak will enable us to explore new physics regimes and tackle the major engineering problems for fusion energy," Moniz said.

NSTX-U draws on a 65-year-old legacy of fusion energy research at Princeton University's Plasma Physics Laboratory where, in the 1950s, physicist Lyman Spitzer created a machine he called a stellarator to produce energy the same way as the Sun. Experimental stellarators and tokamaks, the two most prominent fusion reactor designs, now dot the globe.

"This is exciting new territory, and we're thrilled to embark on the next frontier of fusion research. This device could transform the world by showing us the way to a pilot plant design for the generation of power from fusion energy for use by all," said Stewart Prager, director, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

30 companies on site for latest Industrial Info Day
23 May 2016
During an Industrial Info Day on 20 May, the ITER Organization presented an upcoming tender for electrical, cabling, instrumentation and control installation works to the representatives of 30 companies (48 participants).

The ITER Organization will now pre-qualify interested companies before launching the tender.

Industrial Info Days like this one are organized to inform industry about the scope of installation work to be performed under individual contracts and to encourage companies to participate in the tender. Companies have a chance to meet potential partners in Business-to-Business (B2B) meetings, with the aim of building better consortia in order to respond to the scale and challenges of the task. Info Days are also an opportunity for the ITER Organization to listen to industry and to get feedback on its strategy.

Princeton University produces a "distillate" on fusion
23 May 2016
A new energy technology "distillate" has been published by Princeton University's Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment on magnetic confinement fusion, a technology with "enormous promise" as a global energy source, according to the authors.

The paper presents some of the basic science relevant to fusion energy and the central technical challenges before addressing the economic prospects for commercial fusion, the differences between fusion and fission, and the politics and progress in the global effort to develop nuclear fusion.

Andlinger Center distillates aim to provide succinct yet substantive information to a non-specialist audience on emerging topics in energy and the environment that combine technological, economic, and policy considerations. This is the third in the series so far.

The full distillate can be downloaded here.

--Photo: a plasma in the Chinese tokamak EAST

Vacuum piping contract signed
23 May 2016
On 28 April, the ITER Organization signed a contract with the European consortium GNMS for the procurement of approximately 10 km of vacuum pipework, ranging in diameter from DN 25 to DN 250.

The ITER vacuum system will be one of the largest in the world. Vacuum pumping is required prior to starting the fusion reaction to eliminate all sources of organic molecules and to create low density—about one million times lower than the density of air. The network of pipework will form one of the most extensive distributed systems in ITER, alongside cryogenic and water cooling systems.

The contract signature marks a significant step forward for the ITER vacuum system.

Wanted: university grads from Europe
18 May 2016
Are you a university graduate who wants to gain international professional experience and contribute to the work of the European Domestic Agency for ITER? Or who is curious about ITER and simply wants to be part of one of the most ambitious energy projects in the world today? The European Domestic Agency for ITER is looking for graduates in engineering, physics, law, human resources, finance and communication for four to nine months beginning 1 October 2016.

The traineeship program is open to university graduates who are nationals of one of the Member States of the European Union or Switzerland, who have at least a three-year university degree obtained within the last three years, and a very good knowledge of English. Traineeships are offered in Barcelona (Spain), Garching (Germany) and at the ITER site in France.

The deadline to apply is 31 May 2016. Please find all information here.

BBC Radio explores fusion and ITER
13 May 2016
If new energy sources offer cheap, plentiful power to everyone, how will the planet cope? FutureProofing examines a new method of power generation promising clean, limitless power for everyone. Can it work, what are the consequences, and is there a viable alternative?

Fusion has long-promised cheap, clean and limitless power, but over half a century of effort this technology has still not delivered an operational power plant. Now hopes are high that a vast project in the south of France will finally crack the problems and deliver a working model that can be replicated around the world. FutureProofing presenters Timandra Harkness and Leo Johnson travel to Provence to find out what the prospects are for a scheme costing upwards of £10 billion which could transform the energy supply for us all and with it global geopolitics and the environment for centuries to come.

The program explores what viable alternatives there could be to generate power at the same scale for billions of people across the world, and whether such an alternative is a better route to achieving the goal of cheap, plentiful and clean energy for the future. (Producer: Jonathan Brunert)

Follow this link to the 42-minute broadcast.

Liquid lithium to protect tokamak walls?
13 May 2016
--By John Greenwald

A promising experiment that encloses hot, magnetically confined plasma in a full wall of liquid lithium is undergoing a $2 million upgrade at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Engineers are installing a powerful neutral beam injector in the laboratory's Lithium Tokamak Experiment (LTX), an innovative device used to test the liquid metal as a first wall that enhances plasma performance. The first wall material faces the plasma.

 "This will bring us one step closer to demonstrating this particular approach to fusion," said Dick Majeski, principal investigator of the LTX. The experiment is a collaborative effort that includes researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, UCLA, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Princeton University, as well as PPPL. Funding comes from the DOE Office of Science. 

The neutral beam injector, a Russian-built device on loan from the Tri Alpha fusion firm in California, will shoot energetic beams into the small spherical tokamak to fuel the core of the plasma and increase its temperature and density—key factors in fusion reactions. "The beams will maintain the density and raise the temperature to a more fusion-relevant level," said Philip Efthimion, PPPL head of the Plasma Science and Technology Department that includes the LTX.

The experiment recently became the first device in the world to produce flat temperatures in a magnetically confined plasma. Such flatness reduces the loss of heat from the plasma that can halt fusion reactions.  The LTX also has provided the first experimental evidence that coating a large area of walls with liquid lithium can produce high-performance plasmas.

However, without fuelling from the neutral beam the density of an LTX plasma tends to drop off fast. The beam upgrade will keep the density from dropping, and test whether the liquid lithium coating can continue to maintain flat temperatures in much hotter plasmas.

Read the full story on the PPPL website.

Human-robot teams to operate inside fusion device
09 May 2016
Watch humans and robots work together inside the JET mockup at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in the UK.

Video via Tom Scott/CCFE

Improving predictions of the "bootstrap current"
09 May 2016
Researchers at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have challenged the understanding of a key element in fusion plasmas. At issue has been an accurate prediction of the size of the "bootstrap current"—a self-generating electric current—and an understanding of what carries the current at the edge of plasmas in doughnut-shaped facilities called tokamaks. This bootstrap-generated current combines with the current in the core of the plasma to produce a magnetic field to hold the hot gas together during experiments, and can produce stability at the edge of the plasma.

The recent work, published in the April issue of the journal Physics of Plasmas, focuses on the region at the edge in which the temperature and density drop off sharply. In this steep gradient region—or pedestal—the bootstrap current is large, enhancing the confining magnetic field but also triggering instability in some conditions.

The bootstrap current appears in a plasma when the pressure is raised. [...] Physics understanding and accurate prediction of the size of the current at the edge of the plasma is essential for predicting its effect on instabilities that can diminish the performance of fusion reactors.

--Illustration: Simulation shows trapped electrons at left and passing electron at right that are carried in the bootstrap current of a tokamak. Credit: Kwan Liu-Ma, University of California, Davis.

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

India delivers power supply components to testbed
09 May 2016
Another shipment of in-kind components from India has arrived at the PRIMA neutral beam test facility in Padua, Italy. At PRIMA, ITER's most powerful heating system—neutral beam injection—will be tested in advance of operation. 

The SPIDER test bed is a 1:1-scale ion source that will be used to develop the technology for the production of negative ions. India already delivered the beam dump in late 2014; this time, 13 trucks carried the components of the 100 kV power supply.

Read more about the lastest shipment here.

Journal "Nature Physics" produces an Insight on nuclear fusion
09 May 2016
In its May 2016 issue, Nature Physics has produced an Insight on Nuclear Fusion that features an interview with ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot, a commentary by Steven Cowley (current Chief Executive Officer of the UK Atomic Energy Agency and Head of the EURATOM/CCFE Fusion Association), and a review of the fascinating physics that lies at the heart of nuclear fusion.

A full list of content is available at this link. (Content may be accessed through a subscription to Nature Physics or rental/purchase.)

 

Using fusion gyrotrons to drill rock?
02 May 2016
A senior researcher at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) in the US is using a gyrotron, a specialized radio-frequency (RF) wave generator developed for fusion research, to explore how millimetre RF waves can open holes through hard rock by melting or vaporizing it.

Penetrating deep into rock is necessary to access virtually limitless geothermal energy resources, to mine precious metals or explore new options for nuclear waste storage. But it is a difficult and expensive process, and today's mechanical drilling technology has limitations. Woskov believes that powerful millimetre-wave sources could increase deep hard rock penetration rates by more than ten times at lower cost over current mechanical drilling systems, while providing other practical benefits.

"There is plenty of heat beneath our feet," he says, "something like 20 billion times the energy the world uses in one year." But, Woskov notes, most studies of the accessibility of geothermal energy are based on current mechanical technology and its limitations. They do not consider that a breakthrough advance in drilling technology could make possible deeper, less expensive penetration, opening into what Woskov calls "an enormous reserve of energy, second only to fusion: base energy, available 24/7."

Current rotary technology is a mechanical grinding process, limited by rock hardness, deep pressures, and high temperatures.  Specially designed "drilling mud," pumped through the hollow drill pipe interior, is used to enable deep drilling and to remove the excess cuttings, returning them to the surface via the ring-shaped space between the drill pipe and borehole wall. The pressure of the mud also keeps the hole from collapsing, sealing and strengthening the hole in the process. But there is a limit to the pressures such a borehole can withstand, and typically holes cannot be drilled beyond 30,000 feet (9km).

Woskov asks, "What if you could drill beyond this limit? What if you could drill over ten kilometers into the earth's crust?" With his proposed gyrotron technology this is theoretically possible.

Continue reading on the PSFC website.

Promising experiments on ASDEX Upgrade
02 May 2016
The ASDEX-Upgrade team at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching, Germany is experimenting with a new mode of tokamak operation.

In recent experimental results, an operational mode described as offering "stable plasma, high plasma pressure and good confinement properties in a parameter range in which future power plants are to be working" has been achieved almost without the transformer, or solenoid, that is typically used to induce the strong current in the plasma that contributes to creating the magnetic cage of tokamaks like ITER and ASDEX-Upgrade.

In its place, microwaves and particle beams injected close to the plasma core were used to prolong the plasma pulse.

This type of "advanced tokamak operation" was the object of investigation for IPP scientist Alexander Bock, who details the advantages that continuous operation would have over pulsed operation as part of his PhD thesis. Advantages included better control of the plasma current profile in the plasma, longer pulses, and decreased turbulence.

Read the IPP press release in English or in German.

"Fusion in Europe" seeks writers for a special summer issue
26 Apr 2016
EUROfusion, the coordinating body for fusion research activities in Europe, is seeking student writers to contribute to the summer issue of Fusion in Europe.

If you possess strong writing skills, are curious, and can explain complex science with compelling metaphors, please send in your writing samples to this address by 16 May 2016.

Find out more about the program here.

ITER Project on stage in China
25 Apr 2016
On April 6, 2016, the largest-scale nuclear industry exhibition in China opened its doors and the ITER Project was there.

For four days, the actors of the global nuclear industry gathered in the National Convention Center in Beijing for the 14th China International Nuclear Industry Exhibition. One of the themes of the conference was "Fusion & Plasma Technology Applications."

The Chinese Domestic Agency for ITER (ITER China) was invited to participate by one of the sponsors of the event, the Chinese Nuclear Society. At its 36 m² stand, complete with graphic display boards, model exhibits and promotional videos, the public was given a comprehensive introduction to the ITER Project, the status of domestic fusion research and development, and the specific contribution of China to ITER.

The Director-General of the ITER Organization, Bernard Bigot, and the head of the Korean Domestic Agency, Kijung Jung, both visited the ITER stand, as well as representatives from institutes, universities, and suppliers involved with fusion at home and abroad.

Princeton scientists help test innovative device to improve tokamak efficiency
11 Apr 2016
--By Raphael Rosen

Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have helped design and test a component that could improve the performance of doughnut-shaped fusion facilities known as tokamaks.

Called a "liquid lithium limiter," the device has circulated the protective liquid metal within the walls of China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) and kept the plasma from cooling down and halting fusion reactions. The journal Nuclear Fusion published results of the experiment in March 2016.

This system reduces the production of impurities that typically are created when the plasma reaches other components of the vessel. Moreover, plasmas tolerate higher amounts of lithium impurities, compared with the impurities from other materials, because the low atomic number of lithium produces very low amounts of plasma radiation that typically cools the plasma core.

Serving as the main point of contact with plasma enables the lithium to absorb the hot deuterium ions that drift from the centre of the plasma, and keeps them from striking the interior walls of the tokamak and cooling down. Limiting the amount of cool deuterium at the edge of the plasma reduces the difference in temperature between the hot plasma centre and the cooler edge, and reduces turbulence. As a side note, however, contact with the ions was found to slightly damage the thin stainless steel foil surface of the limiter device, prompting work on an improved design.

Read the full report on the PPPL website.

Photo of the white-hot limiter glowing in contact with the plasma during an EAST discharge.

First WEST Experiment Planning Meeting
04 Apr 2016
WEST's international call for modelling and experimental proposals was successfully completed on 15 March 2016 with more than 150 proposals received from the ITER Organization, Europe, USA, China, Japan, India, Korea and Russia. All the contributions can be viewed on the WEST wiki pages.

 

The first WEST Experiment Planning Meeting will be held on 18-20 April 2016 at CEA Cadarache to discuss the prioritization of experimental and modelling proposals and to define a timeline for the 2016-2017 WEST experimental campaigns.

 

Click  here to read WEST's Newsletter #12

An award for ITER security head
04 Apr 2016
At the first edition of the Security Meetings exhibition in Cannes, France, on 22-24 March 2016, ITER Head of Security, Health & Safety Christophe Ramu was awarded the title of "Security Director of the Year."

A first of its kind, the exhibition brought together more than 120 participants from prestigious organizations such as CEA, Aéroport de Paris, Airbus, Air France, Banque de France, Bolloré, Bouygues, Capgemini, Cartier, City of Marseille, Engie, Gendarmerie Nationale, Hyatt, Intercontinental, Lafarge, Razel-bec, Saint-Gobain, Suez, Orange, DHL and Musée du Louvres.

During the event, four security awards were also attributed to reward outstanding initiatives in security approach.

In the category "Security Director of the Year," Christophe Ramu was recognized for his professionalism and innovation in the exercise of his profession. Christophe, who joined ITER in 2012 after serving for 20 years at Marseille's Marine Fire Battalion, is managing—among many other tasks—the evolution in the implementation of a pre-enrolment system for accessing the ITER site.

This system will enable on-site contracting companies, once they are accredited by the ITER Organization, to manage access requests for their own personnel. The system, which will be fully operational in the second half of 2016, will also improve the monitoring activity of personnel presence and localization on the ITER site.

A view from industry
03 Apr 2016
Cooling 10,000 tons of superconducting magnets that will confine the energy-generating plasma is indispensable to the proper working of the ITER Tokamak. The cryogenic plant, whose design phase began in 2013, has now entered the fabrication phase at the Air Liquide factory near Grenoble, France.

This impressive centralized cryogenic refrigeration system will be composed of helium (He) and nitrogen (N2) refrigeration units and dedicated storage, operating in a closed loop. Helium, at a temperature of close to the absolute zero (-269°C, or 4.5K), will be used to cool magnets, vacuum pumps and certain diagnostic systems.

Nitrogen, whose temperature (-196°C, or 77K) is not quite as low, will contribute among other things to the cooling of the heat shield and to the pre-cooling of the helium refrigeration unit and the helium loops. The site's three helium units (LHe) will occupy 3,000 m2 of the 5,400 m2 set aside for the ITER cryogenic unit. LHe is composed of several compression stations and three large cold boxes, which weigh 135 tons each, measure 21 metres in length, and have a diameter of 4.2 metres.

On average, the helium refrigeration units will provide a global cooling capacity of 75kW to 4.5K, which translates into a maximum liquefaction rate of 12,300 liters/hour. They will be completed by two nitrogen units (LN2). The 11 helium and nitrogen gas storage units—with a total capacity of 3,700 m3 (of which 3,300 m3 for the helium)—will help to optimize the recovery of fluids in the various operational phases of the tokamak.

View the special issue on ITER in Cryoscope, a magazine from Air Liquide.

Highly realistic ITER in Lego form
01 Apr 2016
For Lego enthusiasts the ITER Tokamak is an endless source of inspiration.  In June 2012, Newsline reported on Japanese artist Sachiko Akinaga who had created an 8,000-piece tokamak assembly scene using standard Lego bricks.

Two years later an American videogame designer, Andrew Clark, tried to convince the Lego company to bring his model of the ITER Tokamak into commercial production; unfortunately, the proposal never gathered the 10,000 "votes of support" required to turn the project into an official set.

At the University of Kyoto in Japan, another Lego venture is taking shape. A group of students in fusion materials and reactor engineering (Konishi Laboratory, Dr Kasada's group) has built a highly realistic version of the ITER Tokamak with all major components in place—coils, ports, heating systems, and Test Blanket Modules are all identified by a different colour. The students even managed to insert a waveguide into the vacuum vessel wall...

An achievement in terms of both realism and poetry, the ITER-LEGO project will be used for the promotion of fusion energy in exhibitions and conferences.

Click here to view a video of the ITER-LEGO.

Physicist models lithium erosion in tokamaks
28 Mar 2016
By Raphael Rosen
The world of fusion energy is a world of extremes. For instance, the center of the ultrahot plasma contained within the walls of doughnut-shaped fusion machines known as tokamaks can reach temperatures well above the 15 million degrees Celsius core of the sun. And even though the portion of the plasma closer to the tokamak's inner walls is 10 to 20 times cooler, it still has enough energy to erode the layer of liquid lithium that may be used to coat components that face the plasma in future tokamaks. Scientists thus seek to know how to prevent hot plasma particles from eroding the protective lithium coating.

Physicist Tyler Abrams has led experiments on a facility in the Netherlands called Magnum-PSI that could provide an answer. The research, published in Nuclear Fusion in December 2015, found that combining lithium with the hydrogen isotope deuterium substantially reduced the erosion. Abrams conducted the research as a doctoral student in the Princeton Program in Plasma Physics substantially based at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). He currently is a postdoctoral research fellow at General Atomics. The research was funded by the DOE Office of Science.

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

Predicting the behaviour of each bolt
28 Mar 2016
The European Domestic Agency has developed a new numerical model that represents ITER's 18 toroidal field magnets with remarkable detail. The model will be used to compute the magnetic fields produced by the coils and the resulting electromagnetic forces on the magnet system, which are the result of the interaction between electrical currents and the magnetic field.

"It's the first time we have a complete model of the entire ITER toroidal field system to such a level of detail," says Gabriele D'Amico, the technical support officer responsible for the development of the model. "The level of complexity of the tool is outstanding. For example there are more than 1,500 bolts connecting the different pieces of the toroidal field magnet system, and the model allows us to predict the behaviour of each one during operations."

The model, which took six months to develop, will allow the European Domestic Agency and the ITER Organization to simulate different scenarios using an approach that integrates the 18 coils and all major subsystems. Scientists will be able to study the occurrence of an electrical fault during operation, for example, or the impact of possible misalignment in the assembly of the coils on the behaviour of the whole system.

Read the full article on the European Domestic Agency website.

MAST tokamak on schedule for 2017
20 Mar 2016
Progress on the MAST Upgrade project at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) took another step forward from the "page" to completion, as the tokamak's bottom plate was lowered into place in the machine area last week.

Positioning of the 11-tonne bottom plate, which contains intricately-engineered magnetic coils assembled over many months, went smoothly. The team hopes to have the device ready for commissioning at the end of 2016.

See a video of the operation on the CCFE website.

Seven-layered winding pack produced in Europe
20 Mar 2016
European Domestic Agency contractors have made significant progress in the fabrication of the first toroidal field winding pack—the 110-ton inner core of ITER's D-shaped superconducting magnets known as toroidal field coils.

Following sophisticated, multi-stage winding operations, seven layers of coiled superconducting cable (double pancakes) have now been successfully stacked and electrically insulated. After vacuum-pressure insulation and testing, the winding pack will be inserted into a massive stainless steel case to form a final assembly that measures 9 x 17 metres and weighs 310 tons.

Eighteen D-shaped toroidal field coils—each made up of a winding pack and stainless steel coil case—will be responsible for magnetically confining the ITER plasma. Europe has the responsibility for half the coils plus one spare; Japan is producing another 9. The 19 stainless steel coil cases will be procured by Japan.

Beginning with the first manufacturing steps for the niobium-tin (Nb3Sn) superconducting wire in 2008, Europe estimates that over 600 people from at least 26 companies have contributed to this milestone.

Read the full report on the European Domestic Agency website.

--Europe's A. Bonito-Oliva, project manager for magnets, and R. Harrison, technical officer for magnets, stand in front of the first toroidal field coil winding pack at ASG Superconductors (La Spezia, Italy).

Tritium to give cue on Big Bang neutrinos
20 Mar 2016
By John Greenwald

Big Bang neutrinos are believed to be everywhere in the universe but have never been seen. The expansion of the universe has stretched them and they are thought to be billions of times colder than neutrinos that stream from the sun. As the oldest known witnesses or "relics" of the early universe, they could shed new light on the birth of the cosmos if scientists could pin them down. That's a tall order since these ghostly particles can speed through planets as if they were empty space.

Now Princeton University physicist Chris Tully is readying a facility to detect these information-rich relics that appeared one second after the Big Bang, during the onset of the epoch that fused protons and neutrons to create all the light elements in the universe. Tully runs a prototype lab in the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) that draws on the fact that neutrinos can be captured by tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, and provide a tiny boost of energy to the electrons emitted in tritium decay.

--Princeton physicist Chris Tully in the PTOLEMY laboratory. Behind him are powerful superconducting magnets on either side of the vacuum chamber. Photo Elle Starkman/PPPL

Read the whole article on the PPPL website.

SOFT innovation prize
15 Mar 2016
The deadline is fast approaching to submit a proposal to the 2016 SOFT Innovation Prize, launched by the European Commission late last year for award at the 29th SOFT (Symposium on Fusion Technology) international conference in Prague in September.

Proposals are requested for physics or technology innovations related to magnetic confinement fusion research that have a potential for further exploitation.

Three prizes will be awarded: EUR 50,000 (1st prize), EUR 25,000 (2nd prize) and EUR 12,500 (3rd prize). The deadline for submission is 7 April 2016.

For more information on eligibility, exclusion and award criteria please see Europe's Horizon 2020 website.

Cryoplant: inner tank passes leak test
11 Mar 2016
ITER will use extensive cryogenic technology to create and maintain low-temperature conditions for the magnet, thermal shielding and vacuum pumping systems. The ITER cryoplant will be the largest concentrated cryogenic system in the world (one plant location) and second only to CERN in terms of total cooling power.

On the ITER platform, work is progressing on the foundations of the plant building while—following successive design phases—the procurement of cryoplant components is now underway by Europe (liquid nitrogen plant and auxiliary systems), the ITER Organization (helium plant) and India (cryolines and cryodistribution components).

In February, as part of Europe's procurement package, a 23-metre-long storage tank for liquid helium successfully passed leak detection tests. Responsible for keeping liquid helium at a steady -269 °C, the stainless-steel inner tank has multi-layer insulation to minimize thermal losses and will be assembled with exterior thermal shielding. The examination of 500 metres of linear welds was successfully performed by the manufacturer, opening the way to the delivery of the equipment at ITER before the end of the year.

The storage tank was manufactured by CryoAB (Sweden) as part of the contract signed between the European Domestic Agency and Air Liquide Global and EC Solutions and Fusion for Energy.

Read the original news item on the European Domestic Agency website.

-- Part of ITER's cryoplant, the 190 m³ stainless-steel tank will store liquid helium at -269 °C.

On key discoveries in the quest for fusion
11 Mar 2016
The path to creating sustainable fusion energy as a clean, abundant and affordable source of electric energy has been filled with "aha moments" that have led to a point in history when the ITER fusion experiment is poised to produce more fusion energy than it uses when it is completed in 15 to 20 years, said Ed Synakowski, associate director of Science for Fusion Energy Sciences at the US Department of Energy (DOE).

Synakowski spoke as part of the Ronald E. Hatcher "Science on Saturday" lecture series at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).

Read the full report on the PPPL website.

-- Ed Synakowski is pictured at the Monaco-ITER International Fusion Energy Days (2013).

In the realm of ultra-hot temperatures
07 Mar 2016
How to sustain and measure temperature in a fusion plasma? This challenging task requires different heating systems and diagnostic tools. Information on the spatial distribution of temperature is one of the key elements for improving and controlling plasma performance.

In a recently published Nature Physics article, Didier Mazon, Christel Fenzi and Roland Sabot, of CEA's Research Institute on Magnetic Fusion (IRFM) explore the fascinating realm of ultra-hot temperatures.

Illustration of a new X2D diagnostic: spectroscopy for ion temperature measurement in the WEST tokamak.

Click here to read the whole article in Nature Physics.

JT-60SA's coil gets a first taste of superconductivity
07 Mar 2016
At the CEA Saclay's Cold Test Facility, near Paris, JT-60SA's first toroidal field coil has completed its round of tests at cryogenic temperature (4.5 K). "The coil became superconductive and reached its full current (25.7kA) without any problem," said Pietro Barabaschi, Home Team Project Manager for Europe's contribution to the Broader Approach project.

A ceremony will be organized at CEA Saclay on 6 April prior to shipping the coil to Japan.

Read the story on the European Domestic Agency's website.

53rd edition of the Culham Summer School
29 Feb 2016
The 53rd edition of the Culham Summer School will take place from 18 to 29 July 2016.

The school provides an introduction to the fundamental principles of plasma physics, together with a broad understanding of its fields of application. Topics cover magnetic and laser confinement fusion, space and astrophysical plasmas and low temperature plasmas. Lecturers are drawn from Culham Centre for Fusion Energy and leading laboratories and university groups from the UK and abroad. All are renowned experts in their fields.

Reduced rate 'early bird' registration is open until 1 May.

For more information and to book your place, follow this link.

JT-60 SA torus complete (for a moment)
22 Feb 2016
Assembly operations are progressing on JT-60 SA. In December 2015, the final 20° Vacuum Vessel sector was inserted into the opening of the 340° torus to measure the gaps between the 340° and 20° sectors for the later welding. The operation provided with a brief vision of the completed donut-shaped 360° Vacuum Vessel.

JT-60SA is a fusion experiment designed to support the operation of ITER and to investigate how best to optimize the operation of fusion power plants that are built after ITER. It is a joint international research and development project involving Japan and Europe, using infrastructure of the existing JT-60 Upgrade experiment. SA stands for "super, advanced", since the experiment will have superconducting coils and study advanced modes of plasma operation.

This satellite tokamak program was established in 1997 as one of three joint projects between Europe and Japan within the Broader Approach Agreement.

First experiments in Culham's new Materials Research Facility
22 Feb 2016
Construction of the Materials Research Facility (MRF) at Culham is complete and the building has already hosted its first experiments.

The MRF has been established to analyse material properties in support of both fission and fusion research. It will benefit university and industry users working on micro-characterisation of nuclear materials. It is part of the National Nuclear User Facility (NNUF) initiative, launched by the Government and funded by EPSRC, to set up a multi-site facility giving UK academia and industry access to internationally-leading experimental equipment

On Friday 12 February, the keys to the building were formally handed over by David Wilde, construction site manager for contractors E G Carter, to Martin O'Brien and James Treadgold of the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

Read more on CCFE website.

Read here: "Why is metallurgy so important for fusion's future?"

Towards a global network of Industrial Liaison Officers
22 Feb 2016
Interaction with industry is essential to ITER success. In 2008, the European Domestic Agency established a network of Industrial Liaison Officers (ILOs) entrusted with a strategic mission: to raise industry awareness about ITER work packages, needs and tender procedures.

For the past seven years, the 20-person-strong European ILO network has also played a key role in fostering partnerships between industrial companies in order to make strong technical and commercial bids adapted to the project's specific demands.

In 2015, a proposition to extend the ILO concept to the other ITER Members resulted in an invitation to Domestic Agency Heads to nominate an ILO.

Japan was among the first to answer the call. Earlier this month, Yoshihiko Nunoya, an engineer with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, took up his duties as the first non-European ILO.

It is expected that a global ILO network will be fully established by the end of the year.

 From left to right: Setsuko Moriyama, ITER Project Integration and Support Group; Yoshinori Kusama, Head of the Japanese Domestic Agency; Jennifer Hayashi, ITER Project Management Group, JAEA;Takashi Inoue, Deputy Head, ITER Project division, JAEA  and Yoshihiko Nunoya, Group leader of JAEA;s ITER Project Management Group and recently appointed Industrial Liaison Officer.

 

 

 

 

A heart in fusion
12 Feb 2016
This heart-shaped dust particle was captured by ion microbam scan on a divertor tile in the JET tokamak.  

A team of researchers from the Croatian Fusion Research Unit—Stjepko Fazinić, Ivan Sudić and Tonči Tadić (Ruđer Bošković Institute)—in cooperation with their colleague Per Petersson from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden "caught" a fusion heart during an experiment at JET in December 2015.

Measuring 100 by 120 micrometres, the dust particle is made mainly of tungsten, nickel, chromium, molybdenum and iron, with traces of beryllium, aluminium, copper and sodium.

The Joint European Torus is currently the world's largest operational magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment, located at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, UK. As a joint venture, JET is collectively used by more than 40 European laboratories. The European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy EUROfusion provides the work platform to exploit JET in an efficient and focused way. As a consequence more than 350 scientists and engineers from all over Europe currently contribute to the JET program.

Read the original story on the Ruđer Bošković Institute website.

International collaboration on cryoplant manufacturing
12 Feb 2016
As work on the foundations of the ITER cryoplant advances on site, industrial partners around the world are making progress on the different manufactured elements of what will be the largest concentrated cryogenic system in the world.

The ITER cryoplant is composed of helium and nitrogen refrigerators combined with a 80 K helium loop. Three helium refrigerators supply the required cooling power via an interconnection box providing the interface to the cryodistribution system; two nitrogen refrigerators provide cooling power for the thermal shields and the 80 K pre-cooling of the helium refrigerators. The ITER cryogenic system will be capable of providing cooling power at three different temperature levels: 4 K, 50K and 80K.

The cryoplant is also a wide international collaboration, with Europe procuring the Liquid Nitrogen Facility (LN2) and auxiliary systems, India procuring the interconnecting lines and cryodistribution equipment, and the ITER Organization directly procuring the Liquid Helium (LHe) plant.

Under contract to Air Liquide Global E&C Solutions France, chosen by the European Domestic Agency to manufacture the LN2 plant, the Indian company Flowserve has produced six valves that will control the helium flow from the 80K loop boxes to the thermal shields and cryopumps of the ITER machine. These valves are nearly five times bigger than the average cryogenic valve found on a standard helium liquefier, measuring 2.5 metres in height and weighing more than 1.5 metric tons. Maximum flow-through attains 4.4 kg/second, more than twice what is normally released through a helium valve in even the biggest helium liquefiers. 

The ITER Organization coordinated the inspection of the valves, which are now on their way to China to be assembled with other equipment.

Read the original story on the European Domestic Agency website.

European Commission reaffirms importance of JET tokamak
12 Feb 2016
The European Commission had established a panel of independent high-level experts to evaluate the Euratom research program comprising fission and fusion research. The findings, which were recently published, are more than a pat on the back for Europe's fusion research activities, especially with regard to EUROfusion's flagship device the Joint European Torus (JET) and the Roadmap to the realisation of fusion energy.

The panel's findings place JET firmly at the heart of Europe's fusion research activities and underline its role as the device that is crucial to the developments at ITER. JET is currently the largest operating tokamak in Europe and also the only machine that is capable of carrying out experiments using the deuterium-tritium (D-T) fuel. And because D-T is the fuel of choice for a fusion reactor, results from the upcoming D-T experiments in JET will provide the know-how pertinent to ITER experiments. In addition, JET's ITER-like plasma-facing wall, its tungsten divertors, and its highly sophisticated remote-handling systems are all features that will lend invaluable knowledge and experience relevant to ITER.

Another facet the panel recognized as important is the European Fusion Roadmap which looks to steer the fusion program from being solely laboratory-based and science-driven to include industry and technology in its fold. The roadmap, which has been put together with inputs from all the EUROfusion consortium members, looks to solidify collaboration with industry in areas ranging from standardization of parts to plant design and integration and materials development. Also featuring prominently in the Fusion Roadmap is the role of JET as the testing ground for ITER operation— an aspect that is completely aligned with the panel's findings.

The independent panel's evaluation strongly backs this endorsement stating that "the decision to extend the use of JET to support the development of ITER was not only correct but essential." It further goes on to say that "high priority should be given to keeping JET operating until the design for ITER has been finalized and ITER has been successfully commissioned."

Read the original story at EUROfusion.

Downloadable ITER posters
08 Feb 2016
A new series of five downloadable posters is available in the ITER on-line Publication Centre (/posters). Designed for A1 printing, they are sized for classrooms, offices and labs.

This first series features the ITER machine, several of its principal components (the cryostat and the divertor), assembly tooling and ITER construction. A second series is planned.

ITER aficionados to your printers!

Expert in fusion honoured by China
08 Feb 2016
China has conferred its annual International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Award on a figure closely associated with the ITER Project—Academician Evgeny Velikhov, who helped to initiate the project at the highest political level in the mid-1980s and who served as ITER Council Chair during the technical design phase for ITER and again at the start of ITER construction from 2010-2012.

Currently director of the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, Academician Velikhov was recognized by the Chinese government for his long-term contribution to Chinese-Russian fusion cooperation. He initiated bilateral cooperation between the Kurchatov and ASIPP (Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences), helping China in the successful development of a superconducting tokamak. He has visited China multiple times in recent years as an international advisor and has made valuable suggestions on the conceptual design of China's next-phase device, the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR).

The International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Award is the most prestigious honour in China for foreigners or foreign organizations "who make outstanding contributions to science and technology development in China."

Read the full story in ASIPP's January newsletter, below.

Fusion education network meets on site
08 Feb 2016
During its fifth General Assembly held at ITER on 4 February, the European Fusion Education Network FuseNet approved a work plan for the period 2016-2017.

The FuseNet Association was founded in December 2010 as a platform for stimulating, supporting and coordinating fusion education in Europe, with the aim to the aim of attracting good students and providing them challenging education in fusion science and technology, developing educational tools, encouraging student mobility, and acting as matchmaker between industry and research labs/academia for student internships and vacancies.

FuseNet members are made up of universities with programs in fusion as well as research institutes and industry involved in ITER and/or fusion technology. Membership is not restricted to European organizations.

For more information, visit the FuseNet website.

Korean program news
04 Feb 2016
In the latest issue of NFRI News Korea's National Fusion Research Institute reports the latest KSTAR experimental campaign. Ten overseas research institutes and nine Korean institutes collaborated on this eighth campaign, which ended in December 2015. 

The January issue also announces the 2015 NFRI Award was attributed to Hyeongon Lee, the Deputy Director General of ITER Korea. The award recognizes Prof. Lee's leading work on non-destructive testing technology for ITER and the validation of analysis relating to the ITER thermal shield and assembly tooling.

Read the January issue of NFRI News here.

Paint it black
01 Feb 2016
The MAST Upgrade vacuum vessel is getting a paint job — and its new look will ensure the experiment produces top-quality plasma physics data when it starts operating next year.

While it's a shame to cover up the gleaming stainless steel surfaces, science must take precedence over aesthetic considerations. A number of key measuring systems — diagnostics — on MAST-U will rely on accurate readings of light from the plasma. With uncovered steel, the light bounces off the vessel surfaces, playing havoc with the measurements. Reflected light also makes it more difficult to examine images of the plasma for physics phenomena such as ELM instabilities. Applying graphite-based paint to the walls greatly reduces these reflections, giving physicists much better results to work with.

Read the whole article at CCFE.

Text books for Chinese section at Int'l School
01 Feb 2016
The delegation from the Chinese Ministry of Science & Technology (MOST) that was received at ITER on 26 January also paid a visit to the International School in the neighbouring town of Manosque. Headed by Luo Delong, head of the Chinese Domestic Agency for ITER, and Sun Yuming, Deputy Director-General of the Executive Office at MOST, the delegation had a gift for the students in the Chinese section: four boxes of textbooks for primary school classes and picture books for pre-schoolers.

Of the 34 students in the Chinese section 21 are "ITER children"; the others are French nationals learning Chinese as second foreign language.

New finding may explain fusion reactor heat loss
28 Jan 2016
One of the biggest obstacles to making fusion power practical—and realizing its promise of virtually limitless and relatively clean energy—has been that computer models have been unable to predict how the hot, electrically charged gas inside a fusion reactor behaves under the intense heat and pressure required to make atoms stick together.

The key to making fusion work—that is, getting atoms of a heavy form of hydrogen called deuterium to stick together to form helium, releasing a huge amount of energy in the process—is to maintain a sufficiently high temperature and pressure to enable the atoms overcome their resistance to each other. But various kinds of turbulence can stir up this hot soup of particles and dissipate some of the intense heat, and a major problem has been to understand and predict exactly how this turbulence works, and thus how to overcome it.

A long-standing discrepancy between predictions and observed results in test reactors has been called "the great unsolved problem" in understanding the turbulence that leads to a loss of heat in fusion reactors. Solving this discrepancy is critical for predicting the performance of new fusion reactors such as the huge international collaborative project called ITER, under construction in France.

Now, researchers at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center, in collaboration with others at the University of California at San Diego, General Atomics, and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, say that they have found the key. In a result so surprising that the researchers themselves found it hard to believe their own results at first, it turns out that interactions between turbulence at the tiniest scale, that of electrons, and turbulence at a scale 60 times larger, that of ions, can account for the mysterious mismatch between theory and experimental results.

The new findings are detailed in a pair of papers published in the journals Nuclear Fusion and AIP Physics of Plasmas, by MIT research scientist Nathan Howard, doctoral student Juan Ruiz Ruiz, Cecil and Ida Green Associate Professor in Engineering Anne White, and 12 collaborators.

See the original story on MIT News.

Photo courtesy of the researchers.

Kudowa Summer School
28 Jan 2016
The Kudowa Summer School "Towards Fusion Energy" takes place every two years in Kudowa Zdrój, Poland.

Organized by the Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion (IPPLM) and the International Centre for Dense Magnetised Plasma (ICDMP), the summer program is geared toward a multinational audience, principally PhD students but also Master's students and young scientists from all over Europe.

Courses focus on various aspects of fusion energy, plasma experiments, plasma modelling and technology for young scientists from different countries. The subject of the Kudowa Summer School in 2016 is: Power Exhaust in Fusion Plasmas.

The 2016 Kudowa Summer School will take place from 13 to 17 June 2016 (registration deadline 20 March). For more information, visit the dedicated website.

MIIFED-IBF 2016: Sign up now!
25 Jan 2016
From 8 to 11 February, the Monaco-ITER International Fusion Energy Days (MIIFED) will combine with the ITER Business Forum (IBF) to create a single event dedicated to ITER progress and upcoming business opportunities.

Over 400 participants from 200 companies have already registered for MIIFED-IBF 2016, which will be the sole event dedicated to industrial opportunities at ITER in 2016. The three-day conference will also feature an industrial and R&D exhibition.

It is still possible to schedule one-to-one meetings (B2B and B2C). These networking opportunities facilitate the exploration of partnership opportunities in the context of the technological challenges that lie ahead for ITER. To schedule a one-to-one meeting or to ask for business appointments (based on company profiles), please consult the pages dedicated to registered participants here.

In combining ITER Business Forum with the MIIFED international event, the MIIFED-IBF2016 Conference is specifically designed to support enhanced communication with industry and ensure that ITER procurement practices will be efficient and supportive of its industrial partners. It also aims to facilitate productive interaction between industry and fusion laboratories from the seven ITER Members and to foster collaboration between those actors, especially in technical areas where strong cooperation is required.

See the conference website for more information or to register now.

Mira supercomputer gives new "edge" to fusion research
21 Jan 2016
Using Mira, physicists from Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have uncovered a new understanding about electron behaviour in edge plasma. Based on this discovery, improvements were made to a well-known analytical formula that could enhance predictions of and, ultimately, increase fusion power efficiency.

Principal investigator C.S. Chang, head of the U.S. SciDAC-3 Partnership for Edge Physics Simulation headquartered at PPPL, and co-investigator Robert Hager recently gained new insight into the properties of a self-generating electrical current that boosts power in a tokamak fusion reactor, based on simulations run on the 10-petaflop IBM Blue Gene/Q supercomputer Mira located at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility in the US.

To develop the best predictive tools for ITER (and, by extension, other experimental fusion reactors), research teams are using high-performance computing to resolve the behaviours of fusion plasma across the many spatial scales that impact reactor efficiency and plasma stability.

Running on more than 260,000 Mira processing cores with excellent scalability, the latest XGCa plasma edge simulations revealed electron behaviours related to edge bootstrap current that are not accurately predicted for present-day tokamak geometry by the well-known Sauter formula, which is used to calculate values for the bootstrap current.

"Mira allows running simulations of larger tokamaks at ITER's scale, and modeling at much higher particle counts more accurately represents the electron populations in the plasma," said Tim Williams, Argonne computational scientist.

Read the full article on the website of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility.

Image: Based on a series of high-resolution simulations of bootstrap current in present-day tokamak geometries, researchers have modified a well-known formula that calculates the value of bootstrap current in order to improve the prediction of fusion efficiency in tokamak reactors. Credit: Kwan Liu-Ma, University of California, Davis.

African officials get the fusion infusion
18 Jan 2016
What should have been a standard two-hour visit turned out to be a four-hour crash course in fusion. For the first time in the history of the ITER Project, a 29-person delegation from the African continent came to visit ITER this week. Taking part in a conference in Marseille on public-private partnerships in the energy sector, the lawyers, engineers and ministry representatives from Cameroun, Burkina Faso, Congo, Togo, Senegal, Kenya, the Ivory Coast, Maurice, Mali and Uganda seized the opportunity to spend an afternoon at ITER Headquarters, with a visit to the site and presentations on fusion science and technology and the organization of the world's largest International scientific collaboration. "What you are doing here is really amazing," Tarek Toko, from the West African Development Bank, said on the way back to the bus. "You must succeed!"

EU will update roadmap to fusion power
18 Jan 2016
The organization charged with overseeing and coordinating the European Union's quest for fusion power, EUROfusion, plans to update during 2016 the European Union's 2012 strategic plan to put fusion electricity on the grid by 2050, according to Xavier Litaudon speaking at the annual meeting of the Fusion Power Associates on 16-17 December in Washington, DC.

ITER remains "the key facility of the roadmap" but the update will incorporate the impact of slippage in the ITER construction schedule. A new ITER schedule is expected to be approved by the ITER Council by mid-2016 according to ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot, who also spoke at the meeting.

The European Union's strategic plan reflects a collaboration with Japan on the "Broader Approach" to fusion that was a part of the ITER siting decision process. According to EUROfusion, in the course of the roadmap implementation the fusion program will move "from being laboratory-based and science-driven towards an industry- and technology-driven venture."

To ensure minimal delay to DEMO, the next step after ITER, the European Union has initiated a conceptual design system engineering approach that will address such issues as safety, tritium breeding, power exhaust, remote handling, component lifetime and plant availability, according to Litaudon. Experience gained from continued operation and "internationalization" of the JET tokamak and from devices JT-60SA (Japan), WEST (France) and Wendelstein 7-X (Germany) are also important elements of the plan.

Ed Synakowski, head of the US fusion program, told the audience that the US had recently completed the US fusion Strategic Plan requested by Congress in 2014. Permission from Congress was needed before the Plan could be released to the public, he said.

All talks from the Fusion Power Associates annual meeting, Strategies to Fusion Power, are posted at the FIRE website.

Source:Fusion Power Associates

Impending storm or false alarm?
11 Jan 2016
Among the most feared events in space physics are solar eruptions, massive explosions that hurl millions of tons of plasma gas and radiation into space. These outbursts can be deadly: if the first moon-landing mission had encountered one, the intense radiation could have been fatal to the astronauts. And when eruptions reach the magnetic field that surrounds the Earth, the contact can create geomagnetic storms that disrupt cell phone service, damage satellites and knock out power grids.

NASA is eager to know when an eruption is coming and when what looks like the start of an outburst is just a false alarm. Knowing the difference could affect the timing of future space missions such as journeys to Mars, and show when steps to protect satellites, power systems and other equipment need to be taken.

(Photo NASA)

Read the whole article on the PPPL website.

MAST tokamak: a year of progress in three minutes (video)
08 Jan 2016
Momentum is building on the MAST Upgrade project at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in the UK.

When completed, the upgrade of the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) will enable scientists to test the spherical tokamak design as a candidate for a Component Test Facility that will trial technology and materials in advance of the next-step machine; add to the knowledge base for ITER on key plasma physics issues; and test a high-power exhaust system known as a Super-X divertor.

The final phase of assembly will take place in 2016.

See the three-minute video on the CCFE website.

How to start a tokamak without a solenoid?
08 Jan 2016
Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have produced self-consistent computer simulations that capture the evolution of an electric current inside fusion plasma without using a central electromagnet, or solenoid.

The simulations of the process, known as non-inductive current ramp-up, were performed using TRANSP, the gold-standard code developed at PPPL. The results were published in October 2015 in Nuclear Fusion. The research was supported by the DOE Office of Science.

In traditional donut-shaped tokamaks, a large solenoid runs down the centre of the reactor. By varying the electrical current in the solenoid scientists induce a current in the plasma. This current starts up the plasma and creates a second magnetic field that completes the forces that hold the hot, charged gas together.

But spherical tokamaks, a compact variety of fusion reactor that produces high plasma pressure with relatively low magnetic fields, have little room for solenoids. Spherical tokamaks look like cored apples and have a smaller central hole for the solenoid than conventional tokamaks do. Physicists, therefore, have been trying to find alternative methods for producing the current that starts the plasma and completes the magnetic field in spherical tokamaks. 

One such method is known as coaxial helicity injection (CHI). During CHI, researchers switch on an electric coil that runs beneath the tokamak. Above this coil is a gap that opens into the tokamak's vacuum vessel and circles the tokamak's floor. The switched-on electrical current produces a magnetic field that connects metal plates on either side of the gap.

Read more on the PPPL website.

2015

2015 highlights from US ITER
22 Dec 2015
The 2015 roundup of news from the US ITER Project Office is now available online.

US ITER achieved a number of project "firsts" for delivery and fabrication over the last year. Deliveries to the ITER site included the first nuclear grade hardware (drain tanks) and the first highly exceptional load shipment to ITER (a 90-ton electrical transformer). The US also supplied the first plant components installed at the ITER site (a total of four transformers). On the fabrication side, US ITER shipped its first production toroidal field conductor to the coil manufacturer in Europe and has begun fabrication of the first central solenoid module.

Read all the news here.

News & views on fusion in Europe
22 Dec 2015
Fusion in Europe is a regular magazine on the progress of fusion research published by the EUROfusion consortium. In the December 2015 issue, the magazine takes a look at ongoing preparations for the deuterium-tritium campaign at JET, at the research planned on the upgraded spherical tokamaks MAST (UK) and NSTX (US), and at topical program news from fusion laboratories all over Europe.

Read the latest Fusion in Europe here.

An Advent calendar of fusion spinoffs
21 Dec 2015
For the close of the year, EUROfusion—the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy—is highlighting 24 cutting-edge technologies that have either benefited from, or are the by-products of, fusion research.

Superconducting magnets, low-activation heat-resistant materials, high-tech filters, sophisticated computer codes ... work being carried out around the world on fusion science and technology is pushing known technologies to new levels or breaking new ground for the benefit of many other sectors and, ultimately, society at large.

Follow the Spinoff Advent Calendar on EUROfusion's website.

A new fusion collaboration for MIT
17 Dec 2015
Members of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) community are cheering the start of a long-anticipated physics experiment at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald, Germany. Two teams of PSFC researchers are collaborating on the Wendelstein 7-X device, the world's largest fusion experiment designed in the stellarator line of magnetic confinement fusion devices.

The PSFC has significant experience with a different configuration of magnetic confinement, having spent decades designing and running the Alcator series of high-magnetic-field tokamak experiments — the Alcator C-Mod device, located on campus, is the latest in that series. There are many similarities between the two designs, however. 

Both the tokamak and the stellarator seek to harness the energy released from the fusion of hydrogen isotopes to provide clean and safe electrical power. Both use helical (spiraling) magnetic fields to contain the hot plasma fuel in a donut-shaped chamber. In a tokamak, this field is generated both by external electromagnets and a large electrical current that is driven in the plasma itself. Driving and sustaining this plasma current, and its impact on stability and transport of energy and particles, is a major focus of the research at MIT.

The stellarator concept takes a different approach. First invented by the noted astrophysicist and fusion pioneer Lyman Spitzer of Princeton University in 1950, the stellarator provides the entire helical field through external electromagnets formed in highly complex and twisted shapes. 

Future experiments at W7-X will address the role that plasma turbulence plays in limiting overall performance, and PSFC researchers are working with the W7-X group to investigate this. One PSFC team — principal research scientist Jim Terry and postdoctoral researcher Seung-Gyou Baek — will develop a fast camera system for viewing light emitted from the plasma, and will make important measurements of turbulence near the edge of the plasma. The other team — physics professor Miklos Porkolab and staff scientist Eric Edlund — will develop a specialized interferometer for imaging density fluctuations deep in the hot plasma core. The issues surrounding turbulence are important in stellarators, as they are in tokamaks, since turbulence moves heat and particles across the confining magnetic field faster than would otherwise occur. Both teams expect to have first measurements during the 2017 experimental campaign.

Read the original article on PSFC's website here.

New deliveries from Russia
14 Dec 2015
The Russian Domestic Agency for ITER reports that two shipments recently left factories in Saint Petersburg and Podolsk for the ITER Project.

The first shipment contains correction coil busbars—the components that connect magnet coils to their power sources—as well as flexible links for busbar interconnections. These components were transported by truck (pictured) from the Efremov Institute (NIIEFA) in Saint Petersburg directly to the ITER site. The fabrication and supply of switching equipment, busbars and energy-absorbing resistors for the power supply and the protection of the ITER superconducting magnetic system add up to the most expensive, and one of the most complicated, systems falling within the scope of in-kind procurement from Russia (25 systems in all). In accordance with the busbar Procurement Arrangement, NIIEFA will manufacture and ship approximately 5.4 km of busbars with a total weight exceeding 500 tons.

In the second shipment, four lengths of poloidal field superconductor (two unit lengths of 720 metres and two of 414 metres) were loaded onto trucks at the Cable Institute (JSC VNIIKP) in Podolsk for delivery to the European jacketing line at Criotec (Chivasso, Italy). The conductors are destined for the ITER poloidal field coil magnet system.

-- Alexander Petrov, ITER Russia

EUROfusion Tony Donné advocates prolonged use of JET
14 Dec 2015
On 4 December the Programme Manager of EUROfusion, Tony Donné, visited ITER and spoke to staff in the ITER auditorium.

EUROfusion is a consortium of 29 research organisations and universities from 26 European countries plus Switzerland that is collaborating to achieve Europe's Fusion Roadmap, which outlines the most efficient way to realize fusion electricity by 2050. ITER is the key facility on the road to fusion energy, and Professor Donné stressed in his talk that everything possible must be done to support ITER construction, optimize ITER operation and ensure minimal delay to the next-phase device, DEMO.

Professor Donné also advocated the extension of the European tokamak JET under an international regime in support of ITER. The prolonged use of JET as a risk-mitigation device for ITER and for the training of a generation of scientists, engineers and technicians for ITER could give the world fusion community access to deuterium-tritium plasmas approximately 10 years before ITER.

Read more about EUROfusion, Europe's Fusion Roadmap, and JET.

WEST milestone: divertor coil casings installed
07 Dec 2015
The aim of the WEST project is to turn the Tore Supra tokamak (France) into a test bed for ITER, with an actively cooled ITER-like tungstendivertor.

Component installation is underway. The latest WEST Newsletter (#11) reports on the most recent milestone: the installation of the divertor coil casings. Two stainless steel rings constituting the housing for the conductor windings are now assembled and positioned inside the vacuum vessel at their nominal position. The building of the coil winding can now begin.

(Photo Christophe Roux CEA-IRFM)

Read all the latest from WEST in Newsletter 11 here.

RACE is on for ITER remote handling work
04 Dec 2015
An 18-month development program to prototype remote handling tooling for the ITER fusion device was demonstrated on 26 and 27 October as part of collaboration between the European Domestic Agency for ITER and the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in the UK.

Representatives from the ITER Organization, the European agency, Assystem UK, and AMEC Foster Wheeler were at Culham to see a fully remote deployment of prototype remote pipe cutting and welding tooling developed by Culham's RACE (Remote Applications in Challenging Environments).

Under a grant from the European Domestic Agency, RACE and CCFE's Engineering Implementation Department have produced a set of prototype tools intended for eventual use maintaining the neutral beam heating systems at ITER. Up to now, remote cutting and welding of process piping to the required codes, and under the challenging conditions of the ITER tokamak, had not been demonstrated, and is one of the higher risk areas across the ITER remote maintenance strategy.

ITER will rely on remote handling for maintenance operations where space and/or environmental conditions in the machine do not allow manual intervention. Interconnected components, pipes, cranes and tooling will all need to be routinely repaired and maintained with millimetric accuracy.

Read the full reports of the event on the European Domestic Agency and CCFE websites.

ITER Council names new Chair
30 Nov 2015
At its seventeenth meeting in November 2015, the ITER Council named ​Won Namkung, from Korea, to succeed Robert Iotti as Chair effective 1 January 2016.

Dr Namkung is a Professor Emeritus of Physics at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) in southwest Korea and Executive Adviser at the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory.

In the course of his career, he contributed to the construction of KSTAR, Korea's first all-superconducting tokamak. He has also been involved in Korea's contribution to ITER, serving as the project's first Management Assessor.

Dr Namkung received his BS in Physics from Seoul National University and his PhD in Physics from University of Tennessee.

Robert Iotti, from the US, finishes his two-year term as Council Chair on 31 December 2015.

New mechanism for stabilizing tokamak plasmas
30 Nov 2015
--Raphael Rosen, PPPL
A team of physicists led by Stephen Jardin of the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has discovered a mechanism that prevents the electrical current flowing through fusion plasma from repeatedly peaking and crashing.
This behaviour, known as a "sawtooth cycle," can cause instabilities within the plasma's core.
The team, which included scientists from General Atomics (San Diego) and the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (Germany), performed calculations on the Edison computer at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Using M3D-C1, a program they developed that creates three-dimensional simulations of fusion plasmas, the team found that under certain conditions a helix-shaped whirlpool of plasma forms around the centre of the tokamak. The swirling plasma acts like a dynamo—a moving fluid that creates electric and magnetic fields.
Together these fields prevent the current flowing through plasma from peaking and crashing.
The researchers found two specific conditions under which the plasma behaves like a dynamo. First, the magnetic lines that circle the plasma must rotate exactly once, both the long way and the short way around the doughnut-shaped configuration, so an electron or ion following a magnetic field line would end up exactly where it began. Second, the pressure in the centre of the plasma must be significantly greater than at the edge, creating a gradient between the two sections. This gradient combines with the rotating magnetic field lines to create spinning rolls of plasma that swirl around the tokamak and gives rise to the dynamo that maintains equilibrium and produces stability.
Image: A cross-section of the virtual plasma showing where the magnetic field lines intersect the plane. The central section has field lines that rotate exactly once. (Credit: Stephen Jardin)
Read the full article at PPPL.
Capturing a spectacular operation
23 Nov 2015
One of the most spectacular operations ever performed on the ITER site was the lifting of the Assembly Hall roof structure during the night of 10 to 11 September 2015.

Hoisting the 700-ton structure to a height of 60 metres was a long and delicate operation monitored and controlled by computer.
This video, produced by the companies and organizations involved in the operation, captures the technical achievement as it unfolded.
Vacuum vessel sectors take shape in Italy
20 Nov 2015
The ITER vacuum vessel is composed of nine sectors, two of which are being procured by Korea and seven by Europe.

In Italy, production of a first sector has begun at the AMW consortium (Ansaldo - Mangiarotti - Walter Tosto).
Click here to watch a video of manufacturing progress at AMW.
Rob Goldston wins "Best Paper" award
20 Nov 2015
​The editorial board of the journal Nuclear Fusion has selected Rob Goldston, a fusion researcher and Princeton University professor of astrophysical sciences, as winner of the 2015 Nuclear Fusion Award. The award recognizes Goldston's paper describing a new model for estimating the width of the scrape-off layer — the hot plasma that is exhausted in fusion facilities called tokamaks — as the most outstanding paper published by the journal in 2012.

The journal will present the honor, which includes an engraved award, a certificate and $2,500, during the 2016 Fusion Energy Conference in Kyoto, Japan.

On receiving the reward Goldston said, "It is a great pleasure to win this scientific award for a paper written three years after I stepped down from my leadership post at PPPL. It is fun to be back in the fray working with top-quality scientists, helping to make sense of very important, and very carefully measured, data."

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

ITER releases new website
16 Nov 2015


ITER launched its new website this week! A techier look to go with our ultra-hi-tech mission. For all those friends who ask you over lunch: "How does magnetic confinement fusion work — really?" You now have a place to point them to. And don't miss the machine pages! If you find yourself swooning over a cryostat or a divertor in 3D, you're not alone ...
FuseNet PhD event: off to an enthusiastic start
16 Nov 2015
The ramp-up time for achieving a fusion reaction inside a tokamak machine varies, depending on a certain number of boundary conditions such as volume, temperature and density and, of course, the fuels injected.

In the auditorium of the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, at Prague's Czech Technical University, all the variables were in place on Sunday night—drink, food, room temperature and body density—and so it took less than two minutes after the official opening of this year's FuseNet PhD event before the room started to buzz and the volume tripled. The only thing missing to make the molecules fuse on the dance floor was the music, which soon set in very vibrantly in form of the Apples, a local female rock band.

With a record participation of 130 students, the fifth edition of the FuseNet PhD event is off to an enthusiastic start. Physicist Richard Pitts, from the ITER Organization, opened the scientific part of the program on Monday 16 November with an overview of the ITER Project, assuring those assembled in the auditorium that they were entering the discipline at exactly the right time. "You are at the golden age of fusion." 

The event, organized each year under the umbrella of the FuseNet association with the financial support of EUROfusion, brings together a large fraction of the PhD students in Europe that work in the fields of fusion science and engineering. Young researchers get the opportunity to share their ideas, learn from each other's experiences and develop a network of contacts.

"We are seeing some very high quality research," said Jean-Marie Noterdaeme from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching and Head of the Advisory Board of the European Erasmus Mundus program.

Follow the three-day event through the dedicated FuseNet website.

-- Sabina Griffith
MIIFED - IBF 2016: registration has started!
16 Nov 2015
The Monaco ITER International Fusion Energy Days (MIIFED) and the ITER Business Forum (IBF) 2016 will take place in Monaco from 8 to 11 February 2016. It will be the sole event dedicated to industrial opportunities at ITER in 2016. Over three days, participants will have the opportunity to learn about progress achieved so far, the current status of ITER construction and manufacturing, and upcoming business opportunities. Through B2B and B2C meetings, the event will also facilitate networking between companies and the exploration of partnership opportunities in the context of the technological challenges of ITER. An industrial and R&D exhibition will also be staged. On 11 February, delegates will have the option to visit the ITER worksite as well as two industrial sites where ITER component manufacturing is in progress (Simic S.p.A and Cnim).

For the first time, this international event will combine an ITER Business Forum with the MIIFED international event. The rationale is to facilitate productive interaction between industry and fusion laboratories from the seven ITER Members and to foster collaboration between those actors, especially in technical areas where strong cooperation is required such as heating systems, diagnostics or remote handling systems.

Registration has started! Come and join us! This international conference offers an excellent opportunity for exchanging views and experiences and forming valuable international business relationships for the ITER program and beyond. From 8 to 11 February, we will bring you into contact with high-level decision makers, international industrialists, experienced researchers and ITER staff, giving you plenty of opportunity to meet reliable partners for your core business. Join us at MIIFED-IBF 2016 in Monaco, under the High Patronage of H.S.H. Prince Albert II.
Please register here.
The chancellor, the terrorists and the tokamak
16 Nov 2015
Former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who died on 10 November at age 96, played an essential but little-known role in the decision to site the large European tokamak JET in Culham, UK.

In the mid-1970s, the parties involved in the project were facing the difficult task of deciding where to build the ground-breaking machine. Four sites were volunteering: Culham in the UK; Garching in Germany; Cadarache in France and Ispra in Italy.
As neither Ispra, nor at the time Cadarache, hosted a fusion research infrastructure that could support the new project, the choice soon narrowed to Culham and Garching.
Political discussions to decide between the two had been dragging on for almost two years when, on 17 October 1977, the conclusion of a tragic event contributed to breaking the deadlock.
Five days earlier, terrorists had hijacked a Frankfurt-bound Lufthansa airliner to eventually land it in Mogadishu, Somalia. Eighty-six passengers were held hostage; one crew member had been killed.
The German chancellor decided to have the airliner stormed by special troops. The successful operation, with no passengers injured, was a political triumph for Schmidt. The German special troops had benefitted from key intelligence and special equipment from the British Special Air Service, who had sent observers to Mogadishu.
The following day, a meeting was scheduled in Bonn between Schmidt and the British Prime Minister James Callaghan. The atmosphere was one of relief and gratefulness. In an obliging gesture, Schmidt accepted to be more accommodating on the JET siting issue.
One week later, the European partners all agreed on building JET at Culham.
Testing the thermal tolerance of the fusion reactors of the future
09 Nov 2015
Nuclear  is an attractive option for creating , in principle using the same reactions found at the centre of stars to generate large quantities of power without carbon emissions.

But creating those conditions on Earth is difficult, and part of the problem is finding the correct materials to contain the fierce reactions.

The most common approach is to magnetically contain the high-energy particles, known as a plasma, in a tight circle running through the centre of a giant metal torus. This set-up is employed at the JET facility in Culham, just outside Oxford, as well as in the forthcoming ITER experiment in the south of France.

But even constrained by large magnetic fields, the plasma still subjects the walls of the vessel, likely to be made of tungsten, to extreme conditions.

Oxford University researchers, along with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, have been carrying out experiments to investigate the effect of radiation on the properties of the material used in the walls and on the materials' thermal conductivity.

Read the full article on the PhysOrg website.

Adam Cohen succeeds Michael Knotek as Deputy Under Secretary for Science and Energy (US)
09 Nov 2015
After nearly seven years as deputy director for operations at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Adam Cohen has been named Deputy Under Secretary for Science and Energy in Washington D.C. He succeeds Michael Knotek, who retired 30 September.
 
"I am very excited and humbled by the opportunity to take on this role," Cohen said. "I look forward to working with Secretary [Ernest] Moniz, Under Secretary [Lynn] Orr and all within the department, as well as across the complex, in supporting the research mission of the department and helping to ensure the vitality of the national laboratories."
 
Cohen's contributions to the Laboratory have been invaluable, said A.J. Stewart Smith, Princeton University vice-president for PPPL. "He evolved the management structure that we all enjoy today," Smith said. "He has been a superb colleague and will be sorely missed."
 
At PPPL, which recently completed construction of the $94 million National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade, the Laboratory's major fusion experiment, Cohen has played many critical roles. As deputy director for operations, he was in charge of the upgrade and ran the indirect — or non-research — side of the Laboratory, whose departments range from engineering and infrastructure to information technology. He recently headed preparation of the Campus Plan, a 10-year program for modernizing the Laboratory whose first steps are under way, and set the Lab on its current path to a business system upgrade that will replace all financial software by 2018.
 
Cohen will make use of his fusion experience by heading the U.S. delegation to ITER, the international fusion experiment that is under construction in France. His contact with ITER will be at the international level; he will not be directly involved in the US ITER Project Office at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
 

Read the full article on PPPL website.

New clip revisits installation of the on-site transformers
09 Nov 2015
A new video clip produced by the European Domestic Agency revisits the installation of first four on-site transformers.

A total power of 1200 MVA will be made available to the ITER installation through two networks—the pulsed power electrical network (PPEN) that services the AC/DC converters, the heating and current drive systems, and the system for reactive power compensation, and the steady state electrical network (SSEN) which will provide power to the cryogenic and cooling water systems, the tritium plant and general infrastructure.
 
Four of seven transformers have been installed on the ITER site.
 
Watch the clip on the European Domestic agency website.
A precious contribution to MIT's proposed tokamak
02 Nov 2015
​Mechanical Engineer Jeff Doody from MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) received a "Best Paper Award" on 9 October at the COMSOL Conference 2015. The paper, "Structural Analysis of the Advanced Divertor eXperiment's Proposed Vacuum Vessel," describes how Doody used COMSOL Multiphysics modeling software to predict loads and stresses on the vacuum vessel in the initial design for the Advanced Divertor eXperiment (ADX), a proposed high field, high-power-density fusion tokamak.

Collaborating with him at the PSFC were Chief Mechanical Engineer Rui Viera, Senior Research Scientist Brian LaBombard, Principal Research Scientist Bob Granetz, Mechanical Design and Fabrication Specialist Rick Leccacorvi, and Principal Research Engineer Jim Irby.

Photo: Mechanical Engineer Jeff Doody of MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center.

Read the whole article on the PSFC website.

Plasma heating puzzle comes together
02 Nov 2015
​The complex puzzle that makes up MAST Upgrade's main plasma heating system is well on the way to completion at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in the UK.

The neutral beam injection system will provide most of the heating power for MAST Upgrade (around 5 megawatts). It works by firing fast-moving neutral particles into the plasma, where their motion is transferred into heat.

Recent work has focused on the system's bend magnets and ion dump assemblies. These components steer stray charged particles away from the heating beam and absorb their energy, which can be as much as 12 megawatts per square metre — much more than the loads on spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere.

The bend magnets were delivered to site during the summer and passed acceptance testing before undergoing a trial fit in the neutral beam injection tanks to check their alignment. Meanwhile, the build of the welded ion dump assemblies has proceeded well throughout the year.

By the end of 2015, the pre-assembly of these components will be complete, leaving them ready for installation into the tanks. The re-build of the neutral beam injection system will take place in 2016.

Read the original article on CCFE's website.

Installation of lower divertor coil box brings Tore Supra closer to ITER
29 Oct 2015
Operation since 1988, the CEA-Euratom tokamak Tore Supra (France) is undergoing a major transformation in order to serve as a test bench for ITER—the WEST project.
 
Equipped with a new, actively-cooled tungsten divertor, WEST will test tungsten technology, acquire data on metal fatigue, and explore the component boundary conditions in advance of ITER.
 
As early as 2016 the machine will be ready to test the first samples of plasma-facing units—an arrangement of small tungsten blocks that, once assembled, will form the new divertor.
 
The recent installation of the lower divertor coil box marked an important step in this direction. © Christophe Roux CEA-IRFM
 
Visit the WEST website here.
 
American Physical Society elects new Fellow
26 Oct 2015
In recognition of his outstanding contributions in physics, Professor Dr Thomas Sunn Pedersen from the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics, IPP, has been elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS).

With this distinction his colleagues in the Plasma Physics Section of APS are honouring in particular "his seminal studies of pure electron plasmas in a stellarators," according to the Fellowship Certificate, and for "active stabilization of resistive wall modes"—a special kind of plasma instability in a tokamak.

The objective of the American Physical Society is to extend physical knowledge, support physicists worldwide, and promote international cooperation. The venerable society, based in Maryland, US, was established in 1899 and has a present membership of 40,000. No more than half a percent of the members may be elected Fellow.
 
Read the full report on the IPP website.
A new director for the European Domestic Agency
22 Oct 2015
​The European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy, announced on 21 October that Johannes Schwemmer, from Germany, has been appointed as its new Executive Director.

Fusion for Energy is the European Union's Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy. The organization was created under the Euratom Treaty by a decision of the Council of the European Union in order to provide Europe's contribution to ITER, to support fusion research and development initiatives through the Broader Approach (signed with Japan), and to contribute down the road to the construction of demonstration fusion reactors.

Johannes Schwemmer was selected by the Fusion for Energy Governing Board from a list of candidates proposed by the European Commission after an open competition, following a publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities.

Read the full announcement on the European Domestic Agency's website.

Korea celebrates ten years of fusion research at NFRI
19 Oct 2015
Korea's National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI) celebrated its tenth anniversary on 1 October in the presence of distinguished guests Chairman Sangchun Lee of the National Research Council of Science and Technology and Deputy Minister Jaemun Park of the Ministry of Science ICT and Future Planning (MSIP).

Since NFRI's inception in 2005, the institute has successfully brought the KSTAR tokamak to the level of a world-class superconducting fusion device (2007), celebrated its first plasma (2008) and surpassed the 10,000th plasma experiment mark (2014), testifying to the stability of the device. KSTAR is now playing an important role by running experiments in support of ITER.

 
During the ceremony, participants from industry, academia and national research institutes reflected on the 20-year effort in Korea toward the development of fusion energy. Awards of recognition were granted to distinguished contributors and a certification plaque was awarded to KSTAR, selected as one of the Top 70 scientific and technological achievements in the country.
 
"With the passion and confidence that has brought us so far during the past decade," said NFRI Director-General Keeman Kim, "we will continue to strive forward to bring Korea to the top when it comes to fusion energy commercialization."
Russian TV explores ITER complexity
19 Oct 2015
A 14-minute documentary on ITER aired on Russia's TV Channel 24 on Saturday 17 October.

The documentary brings the viewer into the heart of ITER construction for an update of work underway on the lower levels of the Tokamak Complex, future home to the 23,000-ton ITER machine. The team of journalists also travels to the European winding facility in La Spezia, Italy (ASG Superconductors) to investigate the complexities of ITER engineering and manufacturing.
 
At La Spezia, Russian-produced niobium-tin superconductor is integrated through a complex series of steps into ITER's giant toroidal field magnets.
 
Watch "Horizons of the atom" here (in Russian).
Princeton Lab honours engineer Neumeyer and physicist Maingi
15 Oct 2015
​PPPL presented its 2015 outstanding research awards to engineer Charles Neumeyer and physicist Rajesh Maingi on 5 October.

Neumeyer received the Kaul Foundation Prize for "the design analysis and overall management of the US contributions to the steady state electric network that will supply power to ITER. This culminated in the successful delivery of the first major plant components to ITER, establishing procedures for all future shipments of ITER components."

This accomplishment was made possible in part by the strong and trusting relationship that was established years ago between Neumeyer and the present members of the ITER "electricians".

"In this long venture, the human dimension was essential", says Joël Hourtoule, ITER Electrical Power Distribution section leader.

Maingi received the Distinguished Research Fellow award for "seminal research and program leadership in tokamak boundary and divertor physics."

Read more on the PPPL website.
Demonstration of high conductor performance in Japan
12 Oct 2015
​In a press release issued on 6 October, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) announced the successful testing of the ITER central solenoid conductor under conditions comparable to ITER operation.

The tests, which were carried out at a JAEA test facility in Naka, Japan, by an international team, measured the performance of the central solenoid conductor under the same magnetic field and strain that it will face in the ITER machine. Results showed high performance.

According to Procurement Arrangements signed with the ITER Organization, the central solenoid will be wound in the US from niobium-tin conductor produced in Japan.

The positive test results are a significant milestone on the road to producing the 1,000-metric-ton electromagnet that will allow a powerful current to be induced in the ITER plasma and maintained during long plasma pulses.

The JAEA press release is available here (in Japanese).

Europe reports on a year of progress for ITER
12 Oct 2015
​The European Domestic Agency for ITER has published a highlights document that retraces one year of activity and progress. Contract signatures, industrial achievements, events, construction milestones and fusion R&D activities are gathered in an illustrated 50-page brochure that is downloadable here.

Visit the European Domestic Agency website for more information.

"Is nuclear fusion about to change our world?" asks CNN
09 Oct 2015
Imagine a world powered by a cheap, safe, clean, virtually limitless, sustainable fuel source such as water. If fuel and energy are cheap and available to all nations, that reduces global political tensions. If our energy comes from a clean-burning fuel source, that reduces air pollution. All that would be good, right?

Billionaires such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen apparently think so.
They've each thrown their money into a different fusion development company, each with its own idea how to solve the fusion puzzle, according to Forbes.
"What we're really doing here is trying to build a star on Earth," said Laban Coblentz at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a massive fusion reactor being built by 35 countries in southern France.
When Coblentz said "star," he meant that quite literally. Fusion is what keeps stars, including our own sun, burning bright.
Photo: "When we succeed, it will be for the benefit of the whole world," says ITER Engineer Anna Encheva in the CNN program.
Follow this link to the CNN program.
China and Korea work together for the future of fusion
08 Oct 2015
The 3rd Joint Coordination Meeting (JCM-3) in fusion R&D and related areas took place between China and Korea in Xi'an, China from 13 to 14 August.

Gathering government officials, scientists and engineers from national research institutes, industries participating in ITER and the Chinese and Korean Domestic Agencies, the meeting was hosted by the Department of International Cooperation of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology MOST and ITER China, with support from Western Superconducting Technologies—a supplier of ITER China located in Xián.
 
At the meeting, the current status of the Chinese and Korean fusion programs was passed in review as well as reports from bilateral working groups on the collaborative activities of the previous year. In 2014, China and Korea collaborated in the areas of tungsten wall/divertor and plasma-wall interaction; DEMO reactor design; lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) physics and technology; and ITER procurements including blanket shield blocks, AC/DC convertors and Test Blanket Modules.
 
The next bilateral meeting will take place in August 2016 in Korea.
Public gets rare glimpse of General Atomics' giant magnets
05 Oct 2015
​General Atomics (San Diego) opened a facility making the world's largest magnets for rare public tours on 2 October in honour of the nationwide Manufacturing Day in the US.

The factory in Poway, California, is making seven giant magnet modules, each weighing approximately 110 metric tons, for the $20 billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, being built in France.

Each magnet is made of 560 turns of superconducting cables made from stands of a rare niobium-tin alloy wound around a tube that will carry liquid helium. In operation, the magnets will be cooled to -269°C while 50,000 amps of power are applied.
 
Their role in the ITER Project is to contain a fusion reaction — literally trapping the sun in a bottle.
 
Photo by Chris Jennewein

Read the full article in the Times of San Diego.

Russia ships last batch of toroidal field conductor
02 Oct 2015
​On 28 September, the last lengths of Russian-procured conductor for ITER's toroidal field magnets were loaded onto trailers at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow for shipment to the European winding facility in La Spezia, Italy.

Through a Procurement Arrangement signed in February 2008 with the ITER Organization, the Russian Domestic Agency took on the responsibility of procuring 20 percent of toroidal field conductor lengths (28 lengths, including two dummies), plus testing and transport to the European winding facility.

The building blocks of the ITER magnets are high-performance, internally cooled superconductors called CICC (cable-in-conduit) conductors, made up of bundled superconducting and copper strands that are cabled together and contained in a structural steel jacket. For the toroidal field magnets, the completed conductor will be wound into D-shaped "double pancakes," inserted into the grooves of a radial plate to hold it in place, stacked to form winding "packs," and finally contained in steel cases to form the completed coil.

The shipment of three final lengths procured in Russia (pictured) completes Russia's longest-lead procurement campaign for ITER.

-- Alex Petrov, ITER Russia
In close contact about intellectual property
28 Sep 2015
On 17-18 September, the ITER Organization hosted the annual meeting on intellectual property issues that brings together contact persons and specialists from the ITER Central Team and the seven Domestic Agencies

Chaired by the ITER Organization Legal Adviser, the Intellectual Property Contact Persons meeting is the forum for discussions on intellectual property-related issues encountered with suppliers, legal issues related to non-disclosure agreements, the use of the ITER logo, and the utilization of the intellectual property database.

The fundamental principles of intellectual property management within the ITER Project are set out in Article 10 of the ITER Agreement: The ITER Organization and the Members shall support the widest appropriate dissemination of information and intellectual property they generate in the ITER Project. The ITER Members benefit from accessing the intellectual property that results from the project through intellectual property provisions included in each contract, in compliance with the ITER Agreement and fully detailed in its annex on information and intellectual property (IIP Annex).

The network of Central Team-Domestic Agency contact persons plays a significant role in the implementation of intellectual property provisions in the framework of the project, confirming progress, sharing best practice, and furthering the management of intellectual property issues.

-- Akiko Takano, Legal Affairs 

Nuclear fusion could work — but only if we cough up some money
21 Sep 2015
By Steven Cowley

Chief Executive Officer of the UKAEA
Head of the EURATOM/CCFE Fusion Association


This December, world leaders will gather in Paris for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, where they will attempt — yet again — to hammer out a global agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Despite the inevitable sense of déjà vu that will arise as negotiators struggle to reach a compromise, they must not give up. Whatever the political or economic considerations, the fact remains: if global temperatures rise more than 2˚C from pre-industrial levels, the consequences for the planet will be catastrophic.

But the challenge does not end with reducing emissions. Indeed, even if we make the transition to a cleaner world by 2050, we will need to determine how to meet a booming global population's insatiable appetite for energy in the longer term — an imperative that renewables alone cannot meet. That is why we need to invest now in other technologies that can complement renewables, and provide reliable electricity for many centuries to come. And one of the most promising options is nuclear fusion — the process that powers the sun and all stars.

(Photo Elle Starkman/PPPL)

Read the full article on the WorldFinance website.

Assembly phase activities progress at ITER satellite
02 Sep 2015
T​he Satellite Tokamak Program, JT-60SA, is a major modification of the existing JT-60U tokamak at the Naka Fusion Institute in Japan. Part of the Broader Approach Agreement signed between Japan and Euratom (and implemented by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and the European Domestic Agency for ITER), it is designed to support the operation of ITER and to investigate how best to optimize the design and operation of fusion power plants built after ITER.

Recent progress has been reported in the fabrication of equilibrium field coils and the vacuum vessel thermal shield, as well as the procurement of the quench detection system.

Read more in the August issue of the JT-60SA Newsletter or on the European Domestic Agency website.

Mega-science projects are the focus of training program in China
02 Sep 2015
​To encourage the participation of Chinese professionals in international organizations and international mega-science projects such as ITER, a week-long training program was held at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou from 16 to 21 August.

Cao Jianlin, Vice Minister of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and head of the Chinese delegation to the ITER Council participated, along with other 13 distinguished scholars, high-level officials from international organizations, representatives of government, and the heads of the Chinese and Korean Domestic Agencies for ITER.
 
Through expert lectures, case studies and seminars, participants were updated on progress in research and technology at home as well as the status of international mega-projects in science and participation opportunities.
Video record of first European component delivery
02 Sep 2015
The European Domestic Agency has produced a five-minute video on the delivery of its first manufactured components to the ITER site in southern France—six drain tanks for the ITER Tritium Plant. 
Click here to watch.

Proyecto Huemul: from fusion fraud to physics fortune
31 Aug 2015
It was arguably the scientific fraud of the century, but a hugely expensive failed project to create energy from nuclear fusion laid the foundation for Argentina's success in physic.

The ruins are ghostly, silent. The crumbling buildings and labs — hidden on an island that's drowning in a dense, green forest — look as if they are an abandoned villain's lair from an early James Bond movie. And in a way, they are a villain's making — they're all that remains of a top-secret project, 'Proyecto Huemul', which turned out to be one of the biggest and most expensive frauds in scientific history — and ironically also became the foundation of a scientific success story.

Tiny Isle Huemul, with an area of just two square kilometres, is covered in alerce trees; it resembles the head of a giant crocodile taking a snooze on a sunny August afternoon, poking out of the mesmerising deep blue waters of Lake Nahuel Huapi in Patagonia, amid the snow-capped mountains of the Argentinian Andes.
Read the whole article on Engineering and Technology Magazine website.
 
Also in Newsline # 196
ITER International School in December
31 Aug 2015
​The ITER International School (IIS) is an annual event jointly organized by the French Aix-Marseille University and the ITER Organization. The 2015 edition will take place from 14 to 18 December at the University of Science and Technology (USTC) in Hefei, China, hosted by USTC and the Academy of Sciences Institute of Plasma Physics, ASIPP.

The primary objective of the IIS is to provide a regular forum for conducting a post-graduate training school in the area of fusion science for young researchers with a view to attracting them to participate in the scientific exploitation of ITER. The IIS will present the current and future scientific and technical challenges facing fusion science. The academic program of the IIS will be focused on a chosen scientific theme relevant to ITER and which may change from year to year.

The theme chosen for 2015 is: Transport and pedestal physics in tokamaks
 
Previous editions have taken place in Aix-en-Provence, France; Gandhinagar, India; and Austin, TX, USA. For more on the ITER International School, or to enroll, please visit the IIS 2015 website.
 

FuseNet PhD event in November
24 Aug 2015
​Registration is open through 1 October 2015 for the fifth FuseNet PhD event, which will take in Prague, Czech Republic from 15 to 18 November.

The aim of the event is to enable students to disseminate their research, develop a network of contacts and learn from each other's experiences.

Organized by the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering of the Czech Technical University under the umbrella of the FuseNet Association and with financial support by EUROfusion, the PhD Event 2015 brings together PhD students working in the field of fusion science and engineering.

The PhD Event is open to all PhD students whose topic is associated with nuclear fusion research and registered at a European university, or at a FuseNet member university. Financial support for attending students is available, granted by EUROfusion through FuseNet, at the FuseNet website. More details will be posted on the registration form.

 
Registration is open online through 1 October 2015.
Europe concludes last Procurement Arrangement for remote handling
24 Aug 2015
​The European Domestic Agency for ITER is responsible for delivering four remote handling systems to ITER: the divertor remote handling system, the neutral beam remote handling system, the in-vessel viewing and metrology system, and the cask transfer system for activated components—in all, about EUR 250 million of investment.

In July, the European agency announced that it had signed the fourth and final Procurement Arrangement for remote handling systems with the ITER Organization—the Cask and Plug Remote Handling System. Responsible for confining and transporting the machine's activated in-vessel components, this complex system will interface with more than 50 different ITER systems and comply with the strictest nuclear safety requirements.

The casks, which are automated, mobile containers weighing approximately 50 tons, will move equipment such as divertor cassettes and heating plugs between the Tokamak Building and the Hot Cell Building in order for them to be repaired, tested or disposed of. These transfer devices will need to be able to lift components weighing up to 45 tons and operate with high accuracy within a tightly confined space within the buildings.

The procurement contract for a fleet of 14 units is expected to be awarded in 2016.

Read the full article on the European Domestic Agency website.

ITER hosts Project Management Conference
28 Jul 2015
​"Fusing the Project World" is the title of a Project Management Conference organized by "eVa in the UK" in collaboration with the ITER Organization. The event will take place at the ITER Headquarters on 4 September 2015.

This one-day conference offers first-hand opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences with world leading project managers. The list of speakers lined up includes CERN's leading engineer Roberto Saban, Didi Hopkins from the National Theatre of Great Britain and Harvey Maylor from the Said Business School. The fusion part of the conference will be covered by ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot and Steven Cowley, the CEO of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. For more information please click here.
10th Asia Plasma & Fusion Association Conference
22 Jul 2015
​The 10th Asia Plasma & Fusion Association Conference (APFA) will be held in Gandhinagar, India from 14 to 18 December 2015.

The purpose of the APFA is to organize Asian scientists and engineers working in plasma and fusion science and engineering fields, to exchange information on mutual interests, to strengthen friendships, to promote education of young scientists and engineers, and to contribute to the development of plasma science and fusion engineering.

Abstract submission closes on 1 August. For more information, visit the APFA website.

Chuck Kessel (PPPL) wins the 2015 Fusion Technology award
13 Jul 2015
​Chuck Kessel, a principal engineer at the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has won the 2015 Fusion Technology Award. The honour, from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE) Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society, recognizes outstanding contributions to fusion engineering and technology.

"Chuck has long been a widely recognized pioneer in developing advanced tokamak operating scenarios that have served as the basis for several machine design concepts," said Michael Williams, associate director for engineering and infrastructure at PPPL and a past recipient of the honour. "Receiving the 2015 Fusion Technology Award duly recognizes Chuck's outstanding contributions to the development of fusion technology."

Presentation of the award came during the 2015 Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE) that was held in June in Austin, Texas. The annual event focuses on the latest developments in the quest for fusion energy. While at the conference Kessel gave a plenary talk about the Fusion Nuclear Science Facility (FNSF), a proposed next step in the US fusion program. Kessel heads a nationwide study that will detail options for the FNSF and consider its role in relation to ITER.

(Photo by Elle Starkman/ PPPL Office of Communications)

Read the whole article on the PPPL website.

Summer school on plasma diagnostics in Poland
11 Jul 2015
The first edition of the new Summer School "PhDiaFusion" for students and postdocs was successfully realized last week (16-20 June 2015) in Poland.

 The aim of this initiative (cooperation between CEA Cadarache, Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN and Rzeszow Technical University in Poland) is to establish a thematic school, i.e. Summer School of Plasma Diagnostics, with a strictly defined topic: the first edition was devoted to 'Soft X-ray diagnostics for Fusion Plasma'.

 The choice of the School's venue, in the south-eastern part of Poland, was not accidental. In this region the 'green field' for DONES is proposed under the auspices of local government and Consortium IFMIF/ELAMAT. This region has a heavy concentration of aerospace industry, scientific research centers, as well as educational and training facilities.

 The next edition of the School in 2017 will be devoted to neutron and gamma for fusion plasma diagnostics. Book your time in the summer of 2017 for PhDiaFusion !

 Photo: Chairman of the School Didier Mazon (CEA) has invited the eminent scientists who led lectures and tutorials for young students. Among them they were: Luigi Alloca, Robin Barnsley, Dimitri Batani, Andreas Dinklage, Tony Donne, Christian Ingesson, Hans-Joachim Kunze, Martin O'Mullane, Jef Ongena, Marek Rubel, Marek Sadowski, Jan Stockel and Tom Todd.
Russian suppliers pass ITER quality audit
11 Jul 2015
​For one week at the end of June, a representative of the ITER quality assurance team inspected a number of Russian industries for compliance with the quality system requirements of the ITER Organization.

These companies are producing hardware in the framework of Russia's commitments to ITER's in-kind procurement program, which distributes the manufacturing of ITER components and systems among the seven ITER Members.

The industries inspected—the Dollezhal Institute (Moscow), the Efremov Institute (St. Petersburg), JSC Energopul (Moscow), Fusion Centre (Moscow), and CJSC RTSoft (Moscow)—are responsible for the development and procurement of switching networks and fast distribution units, DC busbars and instrumentation; the blanket first wall; the electron cyclotron radio frequency gyrotrons; blanket module connections; and diagnostic systems and port plug integration. The Russian Domestic Agency was also inspected for its compliance to quality systems requirements.

The final report highlighted compliance with ITER Organization requirements and identified a number of "good practices" at the industries inspected. 

Alexander Petrov, ITER Russia 

  
European Domestic Agency for ITER seeks interns
06 Jul 2015
​Do you want to gain professional experience and contribute to the work of the European agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy? Are you curious about the ITER Project and what it's like to work in an international environment? A Fusion for Energy (F4E) traineeship could be the perfect opportunity for you!

F4E´s traineeships program aims to promote awareness, knowledge and understanding of F4E's role in the ITER Project and within the European context, as well as to provide training to university graduates in the fusion field. The traineeship is paid and lasts from four to nine months with F4E in any of the three sites: Barcelona (Spain), ITER site (France), or Garching (Germany), starting on either 1 March or 1 October.

Click here for a list of opportunities.

Overcoming the "mysterious barrier"
06 Jul 2015
​Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have developed a detailed model of the source of a puzzling limitation on fusion reactions. The findings, published in June in Physics of Plasmas, complete and confirm previous PPPL research and could lead to steps to overcome the barrier if the model proves consistent with experimental data. "We used to have correlation," said physicist David Gates, first author of the paper. "Now we believe we have causation." This work was supported by the DOE Office of Science.

At issue is a problem known as the "density limit" that keeps donut-shaped fusion facilities called tokamaks from operating at peak efficiency. This limit occurs when the superhot, charged plasma gas that fuels fusion reactions reaches a certain density and spirals apart in a flash of light, shutting down the reaction. Overcoming the limit could facilitate the development of fusion as a safe, clean and abundant source of energy for generating electricity.

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

Image: Magnetic island geometry showing the asymmetry effect that is crucial in determining the mechanism for the density limit. Reprinted with permission from Phys. Plasmas 22, 022514 (2015). Copyright 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.

 
FuseCOM team meets in Finland
06 Jul 2015
In June, a group of Communications Officers from fusion laboratories across Europe met in Finland for two days of exchange.

Representing the 29 research organizations and universities from 26 European countries plus Switzerland, the communicators from FuseCOM met for the first time on behalf of the newly built EUROfusion consortium to discuss European fusion communication.
 
EUROfusion, the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, manages and funds European fusion research activities on behalf of Euratom, in accordance with the Roadmap to the realisation of fusion energy, which outlines the most efficient way to realize fusion electricity by 2050. It is the result of an analysis of the European Fusion Programme undertaken in 2012 by the Research laboratories within EUROfusion's predecessor agreement, the European Fusion Development Agreement, EFDA.
 
The FuseCOM members met in Finland, where they were hosted by Finland's Research Unit VTT. Through presentations and working groups, participants shared news from the research units across Europe, practical examples of communication work, and strategies for the future. Meeting organizer and head of EUROfusion's Communications Office, Petra Nieckchen, commented: "We have established a trusting network that is the very basis needed to reach our long-term goal: creating, with the network, a coherent European voice for fusion."
 
Learn more about FuseCOM here.
"Festival de Théorie" begins in Aix-en-Provence, France
03 Jul 2015
The 8th edition of the Festival de Théorie opens on Monday 6 July in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Held every two years, the Festival organizes theory working groups on well-focused subjects in magnetized plasma physics and aims to foster interdisciplinary links between magnetic fusion, astrophysics, plasma physics and related fields.

The international meetings usually bring together 25 to 35 experts and about 80 younger researchers, including PhD students and post-docs. The Director Committee for this year's edition is chaired by ITER Organization Director-General Bernard Bigot. The scientific committee is chaired by Prof. P.H. Diamond (UCSD and NFRI) and co-chaired by Dr. X. Garbet (CEA).

The 2015 Festival de Théorie will run from 6 to 24 July 2015. The main topic is "Pathways to Relaxation." This includes — but is not limited to — reconnection events such as solar flares and general impulsive relaxation in astrophysics, sawteeth, Edge Localized Modes and edge relaxation phenomena in confined plasmas, Taylor relaxation, Potential Vorticity mixing dynamics and homogenization in fluids, and general aspects of constrained relaxation.

More information at the conference website 

X marks the spot
29 Jun 2015
​Rotation is key to the performance of salad spinners, toy tops, and centrifuges, but recent research suggests a way to harness rotation for the future of mankind's energy supply. In papers published in Physics of Plasmas in May and Physical Review Letters this month, Timothy Stoltzfus-Dueck, a physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), demonstrated a novel method that scientists can use to manipulate the intrinsic — or self-generated — rotation of hot, charged plasma gas within fusion facilities called tokamaks. 

Such a method could prove important for future facilities like ITER, the huge international tokamak under construction in France that will demonstrate the feasibility of fusion as a source of energy for generating electricity. ITER's massive size will make it difficult for the facility to provide sufficient rotation through external means.

Rotation is essential to the performance of all tokamaks. Rotation can stabilize instabilities in plasma, and sheared rotation — the difference in velocities between two bands of rotating plasma — can suppress plasma turbulence, making it possible to maintain the gas's high temperature with less power and reduced operating costs.

Today's tokamaks produce rotation mainly by heating the plasma with neutral beams, which cause it to spin. In intrinsic rotation, however, rotating particles that leak from the edge of the plasma accelerate the plasma in the opposite direction, just as the expulsion of propellant drives a rocket forward.

On the Tokamak à Configuration Variable (TCV) in Lausanne, Switzerland, Stoltzfus-Dueck and the TCV team influenced intrinsic rotation by moving the so-called X-point — the dividing point between magnetically confined plasma and plasma that has leaked from confinement. 

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

(Images obtained on the TCV tokamak.)

JET's next tritium experiments materialize
29 Jun 2015
​Since 2011, JET has been using beryllium and tungsten as plasma-facing materials in the vessel. As the name suggests JET's ITER-like wall is constructed using the same materials that will be used in ITER, the next generation fusion experiment which is currently being built in France.

So far, experiments with the new wall have been fuelled by hydrogen and deuterium. Since the most economic fuel for future fusion power plants is a mix of deuterium and tritium, this mixture needs to be put to the test.

As part of the preparations for this extraordinary event, the first delivery of tritium has arrived at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), the home of JET. Tim Jones, project sponsor from CCFE explains: 'For licensing reasons, only a limited amount of tritium may be transferred over the JET tritium storage facility in an individual batch quantity. Additional batches will later be delivered in order to collect together a total amount of 55 grams that will be needed for the scheduled campaign."

Dedicated sets of experiments using deuterium and tritium are necessary to promote understanding of the influence of the fuel isotope on plasma performance and on interactions between the plasma and the new wall.

Similar experiments to those planned with tritium are being prepared with hydrogen and deuterium, so far the results show that ITER operating regimes are compatible with the new wall materials.

 

Read the full article on the EUROfusion website.

June issue of F4E News
29 Jun 2015
​A round-up of the latest news articles, videos and images from the European Domestic Agency for ITER can be found in the June edition of the F4E News, accessible by clicking on this link.

Hot forming the vacuum vessel
29 Jun 2015
The European consortium responsible for manufacturing seven of the nine ITER vacuum vessel sectors has begun hot forming activities on sector #5.

In this video filmed by Patrick Vertongen (ITER Quality Assurance & Assessment Division) at Walter Tosto SpA in Chieti, Italy (part of the AMW consortium, with Ansaldo Nucleare S.p.A and Mangiarotti S.p.A) a stainless steel plate is pressed into the required shape through an open die hot forming process.
 
First, the 60 millimetre-thick plates are heated to 930 °C in a gas-fired furnace and maintained at this temperature for 30 minutes. Then, the plate is removed from the furnace and positioned in a die to be pressed. After two hours in the die, the plate is removed and cooled for the next manufacturing operation.
 
Each of the nine vacuum vessel sectors will be 13 metres high, 6.5 metres wide, 6.3 metres deep and will weigh approximately 500 tons; all of the sectors are double-walled, containing thermal shielding in the interstice to protect the super conducting coils. The other two sections of the ITER vacuum vessel are being supplied by Korea.

Click here to watch the video
(With the authorization of Walter Tosto SpA.)
Fusion energy sooner and cheaper?
25 Jun 2015
What would it mean to have an essentially limitless amount of energy? If we can harness fusion power, we can have energy that is clean, safe, sustainable, and secure. It will be the power of a sun on earth. The dream of fusion energy has been a scientific goal for decades, but it has remained elusive.

On Tuesday, June 16, 2015, Dennis Whyte, the Director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center showed that a series of scientific and engineering breakthroughs could enable fusion to become a feasible a power source faster and cheaper than anyone had thought possible. These technological breakthroughsHigh Temperature Superconducting magnets, 3D printing techniques, and a new liquid salt material that could be used as a liquid blanketwere not originally developed for fusion, but they could revolutionize the development of fusion energy.
 
As a part of New York Energy Week, Whyte presented the recent and ongoing technological breakthroughs to a group of professionals from energy, finance, and media at FTI Strategic Communications' Wall Street office. This event was sponsored by the American Security Project as part of their program on Next Generation Energy.
 
See the original article and slide show presentation here.
​​​​The ITER godfather on site
22 Jun 2015
If only it were possible to read minds. It would have been interesting to know what that particular visitor was thinking as he leaned over the fence to stare down into the busy Tokamak Complex construction area, with its massive rebar and concrete structures. Perhaps how ITER is taking shape, after all these years... 

Academician Evgeny Velikhov, current President of the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, is one of the masterminds behind the ITER Project. He helped to initiate the project at the highest political level by persuading Secretary-General Mikhail Gorbachev that the next generation of fusion device needed to be a joint international effort. He was ITER Council Chair during the technical design phase for ITER and again at the start of ITER construction from 2010-2012.

 
Academician Velikhov was on-site to attend the sixteenth ITER Council meeting held at Headquarters from 17 to 18 June, but for now it was time to see how construction was progressing. Escorted by the acting head of the ITER Tokamak Engineering Department, Alexander Alekseev, as well Section Leader Igor Sekachev, Velikhov—now in his eighties—was able to take full measure of the road travelled as he looked over the 42 hectare construction site spread out before him.
 
Back at Headquarters, he quickly removed the obligatory safety shoes and safety equipment to meet some of the Russian staff members at ITER before returning later that day to Moscow.
High-tech remote handling for the ITER divertor
19 Jun 2015
​​In this five-minute video produced by the European Domestic Agency for ITER, the type of specialized robotics, networks and virtual reality techniques used in deep sea or space operations find their application for ITER, where remote handling will be used to perform maintenance, inspection and repair tasks.

The European agency is responsible for delivering four remote handling systems to ITER: the divertor remote handling system, the neutral beam remote handling system, the cask transfer system for activated components, and the in-vessel viewing and metrology system—in all, about EUR 250 million of investment.

Recently, conclusive tests were carried out at the VTT Technical Research Centre in Tampere, Finland for the remote handling of ITER divertor cassettes—10-ton components that must be installed and/or exchanged through high-tech robotics. 

Watch the video here.

Princeton's upgraded NSTX to be largest of its kind
15 Jun 2015
​The signature nuclear fusion experiment at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab is expected to relaunch this summer after being shuttered for upgrades for about three years.

When it reopens, the reactor there will be the most powerful of its kind in the world, lab directors say.

"We expect to start up probably toward the end of June. We'll do the initial tests that will get us toward research operations, and (research) will start later in the summer, let's say August time frame, maybe mid-September," said Adam Cohen, chief operating officer for the lab.

The National Spherical Torus Experiment, also known as NSTX, is a plasma in the shape of a cored apple heated to between 50 million and 100 million degrees.

The experiment's $94 million upgrade bought a stronger magnet for the plasma's nuclear reactor and a second neutral beam accelerator to heat plasma even further.

Read the whole article on the Newsworks website.

Supercomputer, and researchers, pair up to shed light on material interactions
12 Jun 2015
​As part of a Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) project, a partnership between the US Department of Energy's Advanced Scientific Computing Research Leadership Computing Challenge and Fusion Energy Sciences programs, researchers are using the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility's (OLCF's) Titan supercomputer to try to get closer to producing sustainable fusion for electricity.

 

The project, led by Brian Wirth, a researcher with the University of Tennessee and DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, brings researchers from various organizations together to work on different aspects of the ITER experimental fusion reactor.

...
Wirth and his collaborators are using Titan, a Cray XK7 supercomputer capable of 27 petaflops, or 27 quadrillion calculations per second, to shed light on how fusion plasma interacts with the materials used to build the reactor. Specifically, they're investigating how tungsten—one of the toughest materials known—will be affected by the plasma over time.
 
As helium particles bombard the tungsten wall, they begin to form clusters within the material. Once a helium atom is embedded in the wall, it attracts other helium particles. When enough helium is bunched together, it can "knock out" a tungsten atom from its normal position within the material, forming a nanoscale cavity, or hole, within the tungsten.
 
Read the full report published on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's website here.
ITER Director-General speaks out
12 Jun 2015
Ten years ago this month, a group of industrial nations agreed on the location for the world's largest nuclear-fusion experiment: ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, which they had decided to build jointly.
Today, roughly €4 billion worth of construction contracts and €3 billion in manufacturing contracts worldwide are underway and the first large components are being delivered to the site at St-Paul-lez-Durance in southern France.
Faced with slippage in the schedule—despite the best efforts of the more than 2,000 dedicated people working on ITER—in March 2015 the ITER Council moved to appoint Bernard Bigot, from France, to the top management position of the project.
In this Comment in Nature, published on 11 June, the new ITER Director-General explains how he will strengthen leadership and management to refocus the project's aim of harnessing nuclear fusion.
"Plasmoids" could simplify the design of future tokamaks
08 Jun 2015
​Researchers at the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have for the first time simulated the formation of structures called "plasmoids" during Coaxial Helicity Injection (CHI), a process that could simplify the design of fusion facilities known as tokamaks.

The findings, reported in the journal Physical Review Letters, involve the formation of plasmoids in the hot, charged plasma gas that fuels fusion reactions. These round structures carry current that could eliminate the need for solenoids — large magnetic coils that wind down the centre of today's tokamaks — to initiate the plasma and complete the magnetic field that confines the hot gas.

"Understanding this behavior will help us produce plasmas that undergo fusion reactions indefinitely," said Fatima Ebrahimi, a physicist at both Princeton University and PPPL, and the paper's lead author. 

Left: Plasmoid formation in simulation of NSTX plasma during CHI / Right: Fast-camera image of NSTX plasma shows two discrete plasmoid-like bubble structures. (Photo by Left: Fatima Ebrahimi, PPPL / Right: Nishino-san, Hiroshima University)

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

Job fair proposes 350 local jobs
08 Jun 2015
Facilitating the encounter between job opportunities and local jobseekers was the objective of the third "L'Energie pour l'Emploi" (Energy for Employment) job fair held last Thursday 4 June at the Château de Cadarache near ITER.

This year's fair, organized by Saint-Paul Emplois (the municipal employment association of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France) in collaboration with a number of neighbouring municipalities and the national employment agency Pôle Emploi, had broadened its outreach beyond the ITER construction site and the CEA research centre.

To make the fair even more attractive to the 500 job seekers that had come from all over the region, 40 local companies were present as well as the French Army and the Gendarmerie.

Long queues formed at each of the stands as jobseekers waited for their turn in this professional speed-dating exercise with human resource specialists from each organization.

In total more than 350 jobs were on offer, in a variety of fields such as construction, engineering, nuclear industry, army and services. "Every day, more than 8 000 people come to work in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance at one of the worksites or organizations based on its territory," says Roger Pizot, Mayor of Saint Paul, "and this also creates considerable indirect employment.  This Forum helps to ensure that the first ones to benefit from these job creations are the local jobseekers."

The ITER stand. From left to right, Sophie Gourod, Sophie Flechel and Emilia Fullmer-Bourree from the Human Resources Department.

Like a beast, with its horns...
08 Jun 2015
Before it can become operational, the main body of an electrical transformer must be equipped with several additional elements such as oil radiators, an oil conservator, and insulators called "bushings" — long ceramic devices that deliver the current to the transformer and stick out like horns on the head of a beast.

In order to prevent electrical discharge in the air, the length of the bushings must be proportional to the voltage: at 400 kV, no less than 6 metres of conductor, filled with oil and encased in a ceramic structure, are necessary.

Installing each one-ton component is a long and delicate operation that must be replicated three times for each transformer (one per electrical phase).

When all accessories are installed, the transformer will be filled with oil (an operation that will take three days straight). More than 60,000 litres of oil are necessary per transformer.

MAST-Upgrade fusion device advances ahead of schedule
01 Jun 2015
​Another key step in the building of the MAST-Upgrade fusion device was taken last week with the joining of the first two main segments of the new machine. 

MAST-Upgrade was designed to be divided into seven modules to maximize the amount of assembly work that could be carried out at the same time. On Thursday 28 May, a day ahead of schedule, two modules were brought together for the first time. The 30-tonne MAST-Upgrade vacuum vessel (known as the outer cylinder module) was lifted onto the lower cassette module, a key part of the Super-X divertor — the innovative plasma exhaust system that is a key feature of the new device.

This was the culmination of a huge amount of design, procurement and assembly effort by the MAST-Upgrade team over the past 12 months. It means the project remains on track to hit its major build milestones over the coming months and deliver a machine ready for pump-down by October 2016.

Read the full story on the website of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE).

Chinese ambassador tours site
31 May 2015
On Wednesday 27 May, ITER received the Chinese ambassador to France, Mr Zhai Jun, who visited the project with a delegation of 12 as part of a diplomatic tour of southern France.

Ambassador Zhai met with ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot, toured the construction site, and met Chinese staff members. To all, he expressed his interest in the project that "may change the future course for all humanity."
Ambassador Zhai was accompanied by his wife, Mme Wang Xinxia (second from left); the Chinese Consul-General in Marseille, Mme Yu Jinsong (second from right); and members of the embassy and consular staff. Also pictured: Management Advisory Committee member Peng Yiqi (far right) and head of the Chinese Domestic Agency Luo Delong (far right).
US participation in Wendelstein 7-X stellarator renewed
30 May 2015
The Wendelstein 7-X fusion project at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald, Germany is slated to begin operation later this year. The US, through the Department of Energy, contributed financing to the construction of the device; now, US scientists will have the opportunity to be involved in the research conducted on the machine from 2015 to 2017 with a contribution of about $4 million annually.

The renewed funding enables US universities to take an active role in the research program during the next three years. Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will measure the turbulence in the plasma by various methods; scientists from the universities at Wisconsin and Auburn will be concerned with the properties of the plasma edge. Finally, studies on a probe for measuring electric fields in the plasma will be conducted by a private research company, Xantho Technologies, in Madison, Wisconsin.
 
Three national research centres (Princeton, Oak Ridge and Los Alamos) will also be involved in projects on Wendelstein 7-X, including the construction and operation of an X-ray spectrometer, development of a pellet injector that injects tiny frozen hydrogen pellets to refuel the plasma, and operation of the five large auxiliary coils supplied by the US.
 
Read the full article on the IPP website.
(image credit: RST Rostock/EADS)
A three-day training session for DAHER partners
29 May 2015
Since February 2012, and the signature of a major framework contract with the ITER Organization, the group DAHER is the Logistics Service Provider for the project's global transport, logistics and insurance needs.

Through implementation agreements concluded with each ITER Domestic Agency, DAHER (or DAHER partners nominated locally) will manage the complex logistics related to the transport of ITER components from suppliers all over the globe to the ITER site.
 
In May 2015, as part of a three-day training session held by DAHER for its logistics partners from China (Sinotrans) and India (Deugro India), a site visited was organized at ITER.
 
"Our main objective is to offer an equal level of services to all the Members of the global ITER Project," said François Genevey, Daher director for ITER logistics. "Our partners located in each Member are recognized specialists who offer a regional point of contact and expertise. DAHER ensures that each partner is provided with all IT tools and processes that allow for the delivery of the best services to the Domestic Agencies."
 
In addition to the site visit, the training program also included a visit of facilities at the Mediterranean arrival point for all ITER components arriving by sea (Fos-sur-Mer); the discovery of the 104-kilometre itinerary to ITER; an introduction to DAHER logistics tools for ITER; and a session on the management of Protection Important Components (PIC) and, more generally, on the specific demands of a basic nuclear installation like ITER in France.
 
A similar kick-off meeting was held in September 2014 for DAHER partners from Japan, Korea and the US.
 
Daher partners for ITER are : Cosco and Sinotrans (China), Deugro (India), Hitachi (Japan), Shin Jo (Korea), and Transproject (US).
KIT International School on Fusion Technologies
26 May 2015
​Applications are now open for the 2015 edition of the International School on Fusion Technologies that will be held at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, Germany) from 31 August 2015 to 11 September 2015.

The twelve-day program focuses on the current status of key fusion technologies and on long-term R&D—particularly in view of the next step beyond ITER, the demonstration power station DEMO.

The deadline for applications is 15 July. More information can be found on the KIT website.

Tiny grains of lithium to improve fusion plasmas
25 May 2015
By Raphael Rosen

Scientists from General Atomics and the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have discovered a phenomenon that helps them to improve fusion plasmas, a finding that may quicken the development of fusion energy.

Together with a team of researchers from across the United States, the scientists found that when they injected tiny grains of lithium into a plasma undergoing a particular kind of turbulence then, under the right conditions, the temperature and pressure rose dramatically. High heat and pressure are crucial to fusion, a process in which atomic nuclei — or ions — smash together and release energy — making even a brief rise in pressure of great importance for the development of fusion energy.

"These findings might be a step towards creating our ultimate goal of steady-state fusion, which would last not just for milliseconds, but indefinitely," said Tom Osborne, a physicist at General Atomics and lead author of the paper. This work was supported by the DOE Office of Science.

 Left: DIII-D tokamak. Right: Cross-section of plasma in which lithium has turned the emitted light green. (Credits: Left, General Atomics / Right, Steve Allen, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

Read the whole article on the PPPL website.

Director-General Bigot presents Action Plan to citizen's watchdog group
20 May 2015
​The ITER Commission locale d'information (the citizen watchdog group that monitors ITER activities in accordance with the French 2006 Transparency and Nuclear Safety Act) held its plenary session in the ITER Council chamber on 18 May.

The session provided ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot with an opportunity to present his Action Plan and develop his vision for the future of the project.
"You are a very important body because you are conveying to us the preoccupations of the local populations regarding the ITER Project," he said to the assembled CLI members. "We need to have a confident relationship and I am open to any question and debate."
Grant awarded to Princeton physicist for work on plasma impurities
15 May 2015
Physicist Luis Delgado-Aparicio, of the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has won a highly competitive Early Career Research award sponsored by the DOE's Office of Science. The five-year grant of some $2.6 million will fund Delgado-Aparicio's research aimed at eliminating a key barrier to developing fusion power as a safe, clean and abundant source of electric energy.
 
Delgado-Aparicio's research focuses on the impurities that migrate from the interior walls and plasma-facing components of a fusion facility—or tokamak—into the plasma. These impurities are tiny particles that can cool the plasma and halt or slow the fusion reaction. Delgado-Aparicio is developing a process to enable researchers to pinpoint and analyze the impurities and quickly flush them out of the plasma.
 
Ridding plasmas of these impurities is becoming increasingly vital as experiments utilize longer pulses to produce more sustained fusion energy.
 
Read the full story on the PPPL website.
Applications open for doctoral program APPLAuSE
15 May 2015
Applications for the 3rd edition of the doctoral program in plasma science and engineering APPLAuSE (Portugal) are now open for the course starting in February 2016.

The aim of the four-year program is to provide each student with broad knowledge in the field of plasma science and engineering by promoting close interaction with renowned specialists. It consists in a student-centred and highly modular PhD program designed to enhance each student's capabilities and maximize his/her potential in a chosen area of specialization.

The course language is English. Find out more on the host institution website: IPFN (Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear) or at APPLAuSE

Applications close on Sunday 7 June.

​Transformers loaded for delivery
15 May 2015
Three high voltage transformers for ITER's steady state electrical system have been loaded onto transport trailers in the Mediterranean port of Fos-sur-Mer and are ready for delivery to ITER.

Procured by the US Domestic Agency for ITER, the 87-ton transformers and their transport vehicles will cross the inland sea Etang de Berre by barge before travelling the 104 kilometres of the ITER Itinerary in one night, for arrival on 21 May.
 
Four identical transformer units (one was delivered to ITER in January) will serve to connect the ITER site's 400kV Prionnet substation, operated by the French operator RTE, to the ITER steady state electrical system AC distribution system. 
 
Before the end of the month, two of the four units will be installed in their definitive location on the ITER construction site.
New head of 'Conseil départemental' reaffirms committment
07 May 2015
The Conseil général, the executive body of the French départements recently had their name changes to Conseil départemental. In Bouches-du-Rhône, the département that is home to ITER, this change in name was accompanied by a change in president.

Since 2 April and for the first time in 225 years, a woman, Martine Vassal from Marseille, sits in the presidential seat. On 6 May, she paid an official visit to ITER in order to reaffirm the département's support to the project (Bouches-du-Rhône contributes 152 million EUR to ITER).
 
"We are committed to ITER and determined to stand along with you in this great venture", she said to ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot before taking a tour of the construction site.
President Vassal with Vice-President Gazay (centre) and DG Bigot on the ITER site.
The ITER site from a drone's point of view
04 May 2015
​View this spectacular video of the ITER site seen from a drone's point of view. (Produced in April by the European Domestic Agency.)

Construction: what to expect in 2015?
27 Apr 2015
In this new video the European agency for ITER Fusion for Energy recaps the main progress achieved in ITER construction in 2014 and presents the activities for the year ahead.

"2015 is the year of construction," says Romaric Darbour, F4E's Deputy Project Manager. "The works for ten new buildings or facilities will start, including the cryoplant, buildings for magnet power conversion and radio frequency heating, the cooling towers; cleaning facilities and the control building. The construction of the second floor of the Tokamak Building is also expected to begin this summer."
What's new at WEST?
27 Apr 2015
​The April issue of the WEST Newsletter is out.

The 2nd WEST Governing Board took place on March 5, 2015. WEST international partners have come from China, Europe, India, Japan, Korea and USA to share the progress on the project, joining efforts to achieve the common objective : first plasma in 2016.

Series production launched for complementary divertor components. In addition to the ITER-like prototypes to be tested in WEST, the divertor is constituted of complementary elements based on alternative technologies. The series production of these key plasma-facing components has been launched.

New European partners for WEST. On March 4, 2015, two European laboratories, KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany) and IPP.CR (Institute of Plasma Physics, Czech Republic) signed a Letter Of Intent to join the collaboration on the WEST project.
Engineering professor undertakes innovative research in reactor design
27 Apr 2015


Anne White has always relished challenges. As an undergraduate, she was fascinated by fluid dynamics, and the prospect of nuclear fusion as a game-changing energy source. She followed those passions to her current position as the Cecil and Ida Green Associate Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, where she spends much of her time studying plasma turbulence — which is a challenge unto itself.
"I like it because it's really difficult," she says. "You take fluid turbulence and add electrical and magnetic fields, which make it even harder to understand. Then you heat it to 100 million degrees and have to figure out ways to measure it and see what it's doing. That's why I'm at home here at MIT — everyone's really excited about tough things."
Read more on the MIT News webpage.

Another day, another transformer...
20 Apr 2015
Same component, same origin, same route: the second of four high voltage transformers procured by the US and manufactured in Korea reached Marseille's industrial port (Fos-sur-Mer) on Sunday 19 April.

The 87-ton component was unloaded the following morning and placed in storage, where it will remain until the last two transformers reach Fos (delivery expected around 10 May).

On the ITER platform, near the 400 kV switchyard, workers are putting the finishing touches to the large concrete pit that will host the first transformer, which should be operational in the early months of 2016.

Connected to the switchyard, it will bring down the voltage to 22 kV and dispatch power to the various plant systems of the installation.

 
MAST-Upgrade coil installation completed
20 Apr 2015
​An important milestone has been reached on the MAST-Upgrade project, with the re-installation of four of the largest magnetic coils inside the machine.

Many of the internal poloidal field magnetic coils are new, especially around the upper and lower parts of the device. Only four coils in MAST-Upgrade remain from the original MAST experiment — the large mid-plane P4 and P5 (upper and lower) coils.

But it was not as simple as just leaving them in the vessel — they were removed with all the other internal equipment to enable the interior to be fully stripped down and cleaned. The coils were also comprehensively cleaned, including a hydroblast pressure wash. The P5 coils were then fitted with new flux loops.

Prior to re-installation, a full spatial survey of the vessel and coil supports and indeed of the shape of the coils themselves was undertaken. All four cleaned and surveyed coils were re-installed a few weeks ahead of schedule, on new strengthened coil supports inside the MAST-U vessel. A final survey indicated they were within 0.5mm of their optimum position — minimizing any stray fields when operations commence.

Coil re-installation is an important step, marking in many ways the beginning of the rebuild of the tokamak.

Studying plasma physics online
15 Apr 2015
​The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is presenting the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on plasma physics and its applications, including fusion energy, astrophysical and space plasmas, societal and industrial applications. Enroll now !

A team including Prof. A. Fasoli, Prof. P. Ricci and colleagues at the Plasma Physics Research Center (CRPP) of EPFL, recorded the first MOOC on the basics of plasma physics and its main applications.
Current titles include:
• Basics of plasma physics
• Basics of space plasmas in astrophysics
• Industrial and medical applications of plasmas
• Basics of fusion as a sustainable energy
• Advanced concepts in fusion such as magnetic confinement, plasma heating and energy extraction.
Classes start on 1 May 2015. The course is given in English and will last nine weeks.
Register or get more information here or view the course introduction on YouTube.
News from JT-60 SA
15 Apr 2015
​The mission of the JT-60SA tokamak (based in Naka, Japan, and financed jointly by Europe and Japan) is to contribute to the early realization of fusion energy by addressing key physics issues for ITER and DEMO. It is a fully superconducting tokamak capable of confining high-temperature (100 million degree) deuterium plasmas, equivalent to achieving plasma energy balance if 50/50 deuterium/tritium were used. It is designed to help optimise the plasma configurations for ITER and DEMO, and has a large amount of power available for plasma heating and current drive, from both positive and negative ion neutral beams, as well as electron cyclotron resonance radio-frequency heating. The machine will be able to explore full non-inductive steady-state operation.

More news in the March issue of the JT-60 SA newsletter.

"Father of the modern flywheel" dies at 96
11 Apr 2015
Lawrence Livermore Lab physicist Richard "Dick" Post, the "father of the modern flywheel" who worked at the lab for 63 years, died Tuesday night following a short illness, lab officials said. He was 96.
 
Post joined the Livermore lab in 1952, just months after it opened. He researched magnetic fusion energy alongside luminaries such as physicists Herb York, the lab's first director, and Edward Teller, "the father of the hydrogen bomb."
 
Post retired in 1994, but continued to work, driving himself to the lab four days a week to research various projects, including his flywheel battery. He worked until the last week of his life.
 
Read more here​.

China's KTX will produce 1st plasma in June
10 Apr 2015
In its April issue, the newsletter from the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP) focuses on KTX, the reverse pinch machine that came into existence on 30 March. The mission of KTX is to explore the plasma profiles of future commercial fusion reactors. "KTX will produce its first plasma in June," says Pr. Liu Wandong, chief engineering director and dean of the Modern Physics Department at University of Science and Technology of China.

Read more in the April issue of the ASIPP Newsletter.
12th International Workshop on Beryllium Technology
08 Apr 2015
​The 12th Workshop on Beryllium Technology will be held from 10 to 12 September 2015 on Jeju Island, South Korea. The objective of this workshop is to disseminate results of research and technology development in areas relevant to beryllium utilization in nuclear power systems, both fission and fusion.
 
Click here for more information on the program.

Proton beams are back in CERN's Large Hadron Collider
06 Apr 2015
​After two years of intense maintenance and consolidation, and several months of preparation for restart, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, is back in operation. On 5 April at 10:41 a.m., a proton beam was back in the 27-kilometre ring, followed at 12:27 p.m. by a second beam rotating in the opposite direction. These beams circulated at their injection energy of 450 GeV. Over the coming days, operators will check all systems before increasing energy of the beams.

"Operating accelerators for the benefit of the physics community is what CERN's here for," said CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer. "Today, CERN's heart beats once more to the rhythm of the LHC."  

"The return of beams to the LHC rewards a lot of intense, hard work from many teams of people," said the head of CERN's Beam Department, Paul Collier. "It's very satisfying for our operators to be back in the driver's seat, with what's effectively a new accelerator to bring on-stream, carefully, step by step."

The technical stop of the LHC was a Herculean task. Some 10,000 electrical interconnections between the magnets were consolidated. Magnet protection systems were added, while cryogenic, vacuum and electronics were improved and strengthened. Furthermore, the beams will be set up in such a way that they will produce more collisions by bunching protons closer together, with the time separating bunches being reduced from 50 nanoseconds to 25 nanoseconds.

Read more on the CERN website.

Investigating "magnetic reconnection"
06 Apr 2015
By Raphael Rosen, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale mission (MMS), a set of four spacecraft that will study the magnetic fields surrounding Earth, may employ data provided by Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), which operates the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX)the world's leading laboratory facility for studying reconnection. Results of the MRX research could elucidate the space probes' findings, said Masaaki Yamada, principal investigator of the MRX project.

Reconnection takes place when the magnetic field lines in plasma merge and snap apart with violent force. But NASA is flying blind in a sense when seeking such events, since mission operators don't know precisely where reconnection will occur in space or what the data it produces will look like. And since the explosive events occur in milliseconds, the MMS craft, orbiting in tight formation at an average speed of some 20,000 miles per hour, will have only fleeting moments to detect and measure the phenomena.

The MRX data could facilitate such detection. Comparing the data with signals from space will enable instruments aboard the craft to spot actual instances of reconnection taking place.

Read more on the PPPL website.

10 years old and counting on its 50,000 processors
04 Apr 2015
​When ITER scientists needed to simulate how particles travel and transport radiation in the ITER machine, they bought time in one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe: Mare Nostrum, the flagship machine of the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC).

The collaboration with the Spanish public institution, whose 10th anniversary was celebrated on 1 April, has now shifted to simulation studies of ELM control techniques — another field of study that requires crunching huge quantities of numbers.

High performance computing has become essential to the progress of science and technology. With close to 50,000 processors and a computing power of one thousand billion operations per second, Mare Nostrum has contributed to establishing three-dimensional maps of the galaxy, mathematical models of the expansion rate of the Universe, the sequencing of the human genome...

In a video address to the participants of the 10th anniversary ceremony, ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot stressed the importance of BSC's contribution to ITER.

ITER and the Spanish institution have crossed ways many times: former ITER Deputy-Director Carlos Alejaldre was part of BSC's executive board in the mid-2000s and, more recently, one of the ITER Monaco Postdoctoral Fellows joined BSC's computational physics group, bringing with him the valuable experience he gained while at ITER.

The stellarator as an alternative concept
02 Apr 2015
Collaboration in European fusion research has a long history. In 1961, the Max Plank Institute of Plasma Physics became an associate of the European Fusion Programme, which comprised the fusion laboratories of the European Union and Switzerland. In the 1970s, the European fusion laboratories decided to build and operate the Joint European Torus (JET). In 2014, the program was restructured and EUROfusion formed as a consortium of 29 national fusion laboratories (Research Units).

A goal of this reorganization is to efficiently implement a roadmap to the realization of fusion energy. The roadmap has been developed within a goal-oriented approach articulated in eight different missions (#8 focuses on the stellarator). It also prioritizes the financing of the fusion program.

In mission 8, the stellarator is being developed as an alternative concept for fusion electricity. The program concentrates on optimized stellarators based on the HELIAS principle—a stellarator line which was invented and developed at IPP. Wendelstein 7-X is a cornerstone of this line which is decisive for mission 8 and which will give answers to fundamental questions in plasma physics.


Read more in the Wendelstein 7-X March newsletter.
Industry Information Day for Assembly & Installation
30 Mar 2015
​The ITER Organization is hosting an Industrial Information Day on 21 May 2015 to present the scope and the procurement program of the ITER assembly and installation phase.

The full-day event will include overview presentations on the management of the planned work scope, tender rules and regulations, and presentations on specific work contracts.

Follow the link to register on line before 8 May 2015.

2015 Alfvén Prize in plasma physics awarded
27 Mar 2015
The European Physical Society (EPS) has named Princeton physicist Nat Fisch winner of the 2015 Hannes Alfvén Prize, awarded for outstanding contributions to plasma physics.

Director of the Princeton Program in Plasma Physics and professor and associate chair of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University, Fisch received the prize for fundamental studies of wave-particle interactions and for predicting new plasma phenomena, including new ways of creating electrical currents using radio-frequency waves.
[...]
Fisch has been studying waves in plasmas for years and in many different contexts. "the problem of using waves to transform energy in plasma from one form to another is one I returned to again and again during my career," he said. In addition to pursuing how wave effects might make fusion energy practical, he is currently researching how to use plasma to reach the next generation of laser beam intensities.
Read the full article here.
Making the invisible...visible
23 Mar 2015
​One of the biggest challenges facing fusion physicists is controlling the plasma inside a tokamak reactor.

 

Plasma — a gas of the fuels that are heated to start the fusion process — is difficult to keep stable, and seeks to escape the magnetic field that confines it within the machine. This results in 'instabilities' which make the plasma wobble and fluctuate, taking energy away from it and affecting the tokamak's performance.

 
Decades of research on tokamak experiments worldwide has led to a deep understanding of a myriad of different plasma instabilities with exotic names (from Edge Localised Modes to Tearing Modes, Kink instabilities and Sawteeth). Just as importantly, researchers are developing methods to stop them occurring, reduce their effect or stabilise them altogether.
 
Amongst all these challenges has been the fact that most of these instabilities, certainly those deep inside the plasma, are invisible to high-speed camera videos — until now, that is. University of York PhD student David Ryan is currently working at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy and he applied cutting-edge video magnification techniques to footage of plasmas in the MAST tokamak to see what would emerge.
 
Read more on CCFE website
Culham science centre inspires artists
16 Mar 2015
Think science and art are poles apart? Think again. Three artists who have been inspired by nuclear fusion will display their work at the  "Making a Sun on Earth"' exhibition, which runs at the Cornerstone Arts Centre in Didcot, UK from 10 March to 26 April. And they hope their collaboration with Culham Centre for Fusion Energy will challenge people's ideas about science.

Find out more here.

IPP Summer University for Plasma Physics and Fusion Research
16 Mar 2015
​The next Fusion Summer University at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP)will be held in Garching (near Munich) from 14 to 18 September 2015. The course covers the main aspects of plasma physics with emphasis on nuclear fusion.

The application deadline 31 May 2015. For more information please click here.

 

European-made pressure vessels ready for JT-60SA tokamak
02 Mar 2015
A few years before ITER is due to come into operation, the advanced superconducting "satellite" tokamak JT-60SA, conducted under the Broader Approach Agreement between Japan and Europe, will begin operation. 

Another milestone on the road to JT-60SA assembly was achieved in February, as six European-built helium pressure vessels—destined for JT-60SA's cryogenic system—successfully passed final works acceptance tests and can now be readied for shipment to Japan.

The acceptance tests, which consisted of verifications to ensure that the components conform to international standards and to ensure that there are no defects, was carried out during a period of seven days each.

In total, the six pressure vessels will store 3.6 tons of gaseous helium. Each 22-metre pressure vessel weighs about 73 tons, and has a diameter of 4 metres and a volume of 250 m3. As the vessels will store pure helium, the tightness and cleanliness requirements are demanding. If a fast discharge of the current in the superconducting coils is necessary, one of the vessels is also designed to receive cold helium (-254 degrees C) discharged from the coils through the cryogenic system quench line.

The contract for the supply and transport to Japan of the pressure vessels and their equipment was awarded by the European Domestic Agency to A. Silva Matos Metalomecanica SA (ASMM, Portugal).

Read the full article on the European Domestic Agency website.

 
Big Science: What's it worth?
02 Mar 2015
​Knowledge is not cheap. The world spends more than $1 trillion a year on research and development, including basic research. The biggest projects—"research infrastructures" like particle accelerators and DNA databases—carry correspondingly big price tags.
ITER, the experimental, international fusion reactor in the south of France, is taking years and more than EUR 13 billion to build. The Square Kilometre Array, the world's biggest radio telescope now under development in South Africa and other southern countries, will cost well more than EUR 1.5 billion

It's all great science, no doubt. But is it a great investment?

 
Read the full report from Science|Business, prefaced by Rolf Heuer, Director-General, CERN.
Size matters in European materials project
26 Feb 2015
​Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) is one of the partners in a materials research project that has recently been awarded significant European funding.

The project will explore techniques that can accurately examine engineering components at a range of sizes and scales — right down to the nanoscale analysis carried out in Culham's Materials Research Laboratory (MRL).

To get a consistent picture of the properties of a material, researchers need to examine it at different length scales. This new study will look at how changing the specimen size or the size of the probe used for testing affects the measured engineering properties. Test methods or design rules can then be developed that compensate for such 'size effects.'

It is hoped that European companies can use the results to design and manufacture better components with longer life and lower energy use. The work will also benefit the fusion and fission research sectors, where smaller samples represent less of a safety risk when examining the condition of components.

Led by the National Physical Laboratory, the project consortium brings together major industry players such as EDF, AMEC, AWE and Tata Steel with universities and research institutes around Europe. The grant of ~EUR 1.8 million has been made by European Association of National Metrology Institutes (EURAMET).

Read more on the CCFE website.

February issue of F4E Newsletter now online
23 Feb 2015
​The February issue of Fusion for Energy newsletter is now online. Find out how contractors feel about ITER's business potential, read about top management changes in Barcelona, catch up on design reviews and more.

EAST auxiliary heating system passes review
20 Feb 2015
Operators at EAST, the Chinese superconducting tokamak, announced in the February issue of the EAST Newsletter that the auxiliary heating system has passed a national acceptance review and is officially stamped "well qualified" to enter operation.

Construction on the auxiliary heating system, which consists of 4 MW neutral beam injectors and 6 MW lower hybrid current drives, began in November 2011. The additional heating power on EAST will enable high-level plasma physics research including testing for ITER.

The acceptance panel commended the construction, complete "with high quality, within budget and one year ahead of schedule."

Aiming at long-pulse plasma discharges, a series of experimental techniques has been developed on EAST in recent years. Tremendous efforts have been made during past two years to enhance EAST's capabilities—nearly every sub-system except superconducting magnets has been upgraded or modified to enable higher performance and truly steady state operation.

Read the full article in the February issue of the EAST Newsletter, attached.

European fusion and fission education networks enter cooperation
20 Feb 2015
On 3 February 2015, FuseNet (the European Fusion Education Network) and ENEN (the European Nuclear Education Network) signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the General Assembly meeting of FuseNet that was held at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. It marked the start for further cooperation between the European fusion and fission education networks.
 
ENEN is older than FuseNet, but similar in many ways. As the nuclear aspects of fusion energy become more prominent -- ITER is truly a nuclear device -- the need to provide fusion students and engineers with proper education and training in this field becomes ever larger. Likewise, nuclear engineers are in high demand in the fusion enterprises now, and they may benefit from a fusion training.
 
Prof. Walter Ambrosini (president of ENEN, left) and Prof. Niek Lopes Cardozo (president of FuseNet, right) sign the Memorandum of Understanding between the two networks.
 

Read more on the FuseNet website.

Our own familiar fusion furnace
16 Feb 2015
​February 11, 2015 marks five years in space for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which provides incredibly detailed images of the whole sun 24 hours a day. Capturing an image more than once per second, SDO has provided an unprecedentedly clear picture of how massive explosions on the sun grow and erupt ever since its launch on Feb. 11, 2010. The imagery is also captivating, allowing one to watch the constant ballet of solar material through the sun's atmosphere, the corona. 

In honor of SDO's fifth anniversary, NASA has released a video showcasing highlights from the last five years of sun watching. Watch the movie to see giant clouds of solar material hurled out into space, the dance of giant loops hovering in the corona, and huge sunspots growing and shrinking on the sun's surface. 

The imagery is an example of the kind of data that SDO provides to scientists. By watching the sun in different wavelengths — and therefore different temperatures — scientists can watch how material courses through the corona, which holds clues to what causes eruptions on the sun, what heats the sun's atmosphere up to 1,000 times hotter than its surface, and why the sun's magnetic fields are constantly on the move.


View the video on the NASA website.

IBF/15: Doing business with ITER
13 Feb 2015
The ITER Business Forum 2015 (IBF/15) will take place in Marseille, France from 25 to 27 March 2015.

Already, close to 400 participants from 200 companies have registered to participate. (A real-time update is available here.)


The agenda is now finalized and includes 14 theme workshops bringing together more than one hundred speakers from the ITER Organization, the procurement agencies for ITER—the Domestic Agencies—and key suppliers. 
 
Registration for one-to-one meetings, either "business to business" or "business to customers," will open in a few days.
 
IBF/15 is a unique occasion for companies to approach the ITER Project and to investigate possibilities for involvement or partnership around upcoming tender offers.

Visit the IBF/15 website for more information.
ITER featured at conference in Zvenigorod, Russia
13 Feb 2015
​The 42nd International Zvenigorod Conference for plasma physics and thermonuclear fusion was held on 9-13 February, near Moscow, Russia.

At this annual event, experts from inside Russia and from abroad gather to discuss recent achievements in the areas of high and low temperature plasma research, controlled fusion, and developments in plasma and beam technologies.

Part of the conference is traditionally devoted to progress in ITER. In the presence of Anatoly Krasilnikov, head of the Russian Domestic Agency, representatives from ITER Russia and from the research centres and industries involved in the project gave more than 50 oral presentations and reports on the first day of the conference on the progress in ITER procurement and manufacturing. Topics included the magnet system, in-vessel plasma-facing components, and diagnostic instruments.

The presentations generated wide interest among the members of the expert community, including representatives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the State Corporation Rosatom and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

-- Alexander Petrov, ITER Russia
Inspiring the ITER generation - Culham's Fusion Workshop
11 Feb 2015
The following was posted recently on "Tokamak Tales," a blog run by fusion engineers and physicists at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in the UK.

By Sarah Medley
It's a really exciting time for fusion research right now — we're building the next-generation tokamak ITER and we're working towards a demonstration power station (known as DEMO), to put fusion electricity on the grid before 2050. However, the dream of fusion as the ultimate energy source will never become reality without one essential ingredient: people! We need people to continue the research, to operate ITER and design DEMO! So it is essential that the fusion community considers how to inspire this next generation of fusion scientists and engineers - often referred to as "the ITER generation."
 
Fortunately, the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) already has a strong outreach program dedicated to this goal. We give tours of our JET and MAST fusion experiments to A-level and university students, and we take the Sun Dome science roadshow into primary schools. However, the graduates realized that there was a "gap in the market" when it comes to secondary school students, so we decided to develop something specifically aimed at inspiring this age group to pursue science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) to A-level and beyond!

And behold, the CCFE Fusion Workshop was born. Developed entirely by CCFE graduates, the Fusion Workshop is an interactive activity session that uses hands-on science and engineering demonstrations to bring the real-world applications of STEM subjects to life in the context of fusion research. What exactly does that mean, you ask? Well basically, we assemble a crack team of graduates, pile them into a van with a load of demonstration kits and send them off to a local secondary school to invade a physics lesson.
[...]
You can read more about the Fusion Workshop initiative at "Tokamak Tales."
How viable is nuclear fusion as an energy source?
11 Feb 2015

Professor Steve Cowley, director of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, and Dr Michael Dittmar, a researcher with the Institute of Particle Physics at ETH Zurich, debate in a 37-min podcast that aired on The Guardian's ''Science Weekly'' program on 26 January. 

The discussion ranged from reactor design challenges to the politics and finances of ITER. 

Listen to the podcast here.

Could bubbles lead to fusion?
09 Feb 2015
​Nuclear fusion is the dream of energy scientists the world over, because it promises limitless, clean electricity. Most efforts to kickstart the process use high-intensity lasers, insane magnetic field and super-hot hydrogen plasmas. But there may be a more humble alternative. It's called sonofusion, and it involves bubbles...

When liquid undergoes rapid changes in pressure, cavities can form — seemingly from nowhere, but usually around some kind of impurity or imperfection in the fluid. The changing pressure causes this cavity to expand and contract: this is a bubble, and its method of creation is known as cavitation. In particularly violent pressure fields, the bubble can contract so quickly and with so much force that it collapses entirely, producing a shock wave. This phenomenon's what causes the dramatic pitting on boat propellor and water pumps, where high fluctuating pressures causes bubbles to form and collapse.

But in the controlled environment of a laboratory, the bubbles can do more than cause damage. Way back in 1934, at the University of Cologne, H. Frenzel and H. Schultes turned of the lights in their laboratory, put an ultrasound transducer in a tank of photographic developer fluid, and turned it on. They were hoping to speed up the development process of photographic film — but instead, they noticed dots of light that appeared for a split-second at a time This was the first evidence of a process called sonoluminescene, where the large quantities of energy generated by a collapsing bubble cause light to be emitted. And where there's light, there's energy.

[...]

Read the full article on the Gizmodo Australia website.

 

"Now I can believe that ITER will be successful"
04 Feb 2015
On an icy and sunny morning, a delegation of engineers, designers and design office coordinators from the seven Domestic Agencies went down into the Tokamak foundations for a technical visit.

Part of the CAD (Computer Aided Design) Working Group, the 15 members of the delegation were on site for the 13th CAD Working Group Workshop that took place at ITER Headquarters from 27 to 29 January.

The group was warmly welcomed by Laurent Patisson, Section Leader for Nuclear Buildings, who took them for a one-hour tour to the heart of the ITER platform: the foundations of the Tokamak Complex.

After a first glance from the belvedere—the viewpoint from the northern corner of the Tokamak Complex worksite where visitors are usually taken—the group went onto the Tokamak Complex floor (the B2 slab), which was icy in some places due to a recent cold snap. 

Although the delegation was more than familiar with the design and the drawings of the ITER facilities, for many it was the first time on site. Philippe Le-Minh, Design Office coordination officer, was particularly thrilled to "feel all the activity going on," while Pierre-Yves Chaffard, head of Technical Support Services for the European Domestic Agency, remarked that it is "always interesting to see with our eyes, what we are used to seeing through our computers."   

As the group returned to ITER Headquarters for the rest of their meetings, Geun Hong Kim, Design Office team leader for the Korean Domestic Agency, summed up the general feeling: "Now I can believe that ITER will be successful."

-- Julie Marcillat
WEST Newsletter #8 available
04 Feb 2015
​The Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research, ITER's neighbour in Saint Paul-lez-Durance, has published issue #8 of the WEST newsletter.

The issue features a report about the integration of WEST into the EUROfusion ITER Physics Programme, progress on the calibration of diagnostics in the machine, and the test deployment of a WEST inspection robot inside of the EAST tokamak.

WEST stands for (W Environment in Steady-state Tokamak), where "W" is the chemical symbol of tungsten. The Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research is modifying the Tore Supra plasma facility to become a test platform open to all ITER partners.

Read the eighth issue of the WEST Newsletter here.

New year, new upgrades for JET tokamak
30 Jan 2015
The JET machine area is a hive of activity as the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) prepares the facility on behalf of EUROfusion for its next run of experiments later in 2015.

The shutdown period is an opportunity for engineers to tune up key systems on JET and to install new components to improve the tokamak's performance. This time round, the focus is on plasma fuelling and heating systems. The high frequency pellet injector, which propels frozen deuterium fuel into the JET plasma, is being optimized and repositioned to achieve more reliable operation. A refurbished antenna—the ion cyclotron resonance heating system, which produces radiowaves that resonate with the plasma particles and heat them up—will also be plugged in. JET's antenna is similar to the one that the next-step ITER Tokamak will use. Bringing it back online will mean that experiments can simulate ITER conditions more accurately, and has the added advantage of helping to flush out impurities from the core of the plasma.

European fusion researchers are keen to see how the 2014 JET tests have left their mark on the machine. The shutdown is enabling CCFE's team of remote handling engineers to remove sample tiles from the interior of JET so their condition can be analyzed. Inspecting the tiles will yield valuable information about how the beryllium and tungsten wall lining is being affected by its close proximity to the plasma (another hot topic for ITER). And a remote-controlled vacuum cleaner has been inside JET collecting dust which can also give pointers on the interaction between the plasma and the wall materials.

In a similar vein, a new high-resolution camera has just been taken into the JET chamber to photograph the tiles in the divertor region. In this area, as the name suggests, impurities and waste material are diverted out of the plasma, and the tungsten surfaces of the divertor are exposed to intense heat as a result. The photographic survey is giving scientists the most detailed pictures yet of the condition of this area of the machine.

Read the full article on the CCFE website here.

Reminder: ITER Business Forum in March
30 Jan 2015
The ITER Business Forum 2015 (IBF/15) will take place in Marseille, France from 25 to 27 March 2015.

Already, 256 participants from 135 companies have registered to participate.

IBF/15 is a unique occasion for companies to approach the ITER Project and to investigate possibilities for involvement or partnership around upcoming tender offers.

Key project actors will present the status of systems. Twelve thematic workshops with presentations will be given by the ITER Organization, the procurement agencies for ITER—the Domestic Agencies—and key suppliers.

Visit the IBF/15 website for registration information.

EUROfusion actors meet in Switzerland
28 Jan 2015
The JET and Medium-Size Tokamaks General Planning Meeting was held in January in Lausanne at the Olympic Museum. The conference was a major step towards the internationalization of the TCV tokamak at EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne).

The EUROfusion Consortium is the umbrella organization of all fusion research laboratories in Europe including Switzerland. Tasked with building the roadmap to ITER and DEMO, the prototype of a fusion commercial reactor, it provides the work platform for exploiting the Joint European Torus (JET) in the UK, sometimes referred to as "little ITER." EPFL's TCV tokamak carries out important experimental work in fusion, focusing on different plasma confinements and shapes. 

The Planning Meeting, organized by the Center for Research in Plasma Physics (CRPP), which runs the TCV, focused on proposals for experiments aligned with the EUROfusion roadmap and that could be performed in 2015 on the roadmap's dedicated devices: JET, ASDEX Upgrade and EPFL's TCV. Scientists presented their views of a comprehensive experimental strategy, which was discussed by the almost 150 senior scientists attending the conference.

The selected experiments will be performed on EUROfusion's different devices by international groups of physicists. The plan calls for the TCV to be used for almost two months in 2015 and early 2016, while it will also continue to operate for EPFL's own research goals, which are generally also aligned with the ITER roadmap.

The conference included a visit of the TCV, followed by a reception at the CRPP's site.

Read the full article on the EPFL website. See also the report from EUROfusion.

--Photo: EPFL, Alain Herzog
UK Minister sees an exciting future for Culham
23 Jan 2015
​Greg Clark MP, UK Minister of State for Universities, Science & Cities, visited JET on Friday 23 January to find out how researchers and engineers are bringing fusion power closer to reality.

Mr Clark met staff from EUROfusionthe European consortium that coordinates the research on JETand CCFE, which operates the experiment on their behalf.
He heard about how JET, as the world's largest magnetic fusion device, has a unique role in preparing for the ITER international research project, which when constructed will aim to prove that fusion can be a viable commercial-scale energy source.
During his tour he met CCFE engineer Chris Fowler (pictured) in the JET Remote Handling Unit. Chris gave the Minister a demonstration of the advanced remote handling technology that allows operators to maintain and upgrade JET without the need to send people into the device.
Remote handling and robotics was the main theme of the day, as Mr Clark officially started construction of Culham's new RACE centre with a groundbreaking ceremony.
 
Read the full article on the CCFE website.
Panel ensures safe operation of NSTX Upgrade
19 Jan 2015
Like a new passenger jet or power plant, the National Spherical Torus Upgrade (NSTX-U) must be certified safe to operate. At the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, the task of evaluating the safety of the $94 million upgrade belongs to the Activity Certification Committee (ACC), whose work remains ongoing. "This is a critical group," said Adam Cohen, deputy director for operations at the Laboratory. "When you have a complex activity like the upgrade you need a standing committee to guarantee that it will run safely."
 
For nearly two years the ACC has reviewed key components of the upgrade, which is scheduled for completion in March and will make the NSTX-U the most powerful spherical fusion facility on Earth. The group conducts hands-on inspections — or "walkdowns" — of all systems and subsystems and reviews training and pre-operational test procedures. "It's very vital and reassuring when the ACC says we're ready to go," said Mike Williams, director of engineering and infrastructure and associate director of the Laboratory.
 
Read the whole story on PPPL website.
Recipe for success at the MAST tokamak
12 Jan 2015
​Take one stainless steel tokamak component, bake in the oven for seven hours at 980 degrees C till it's just right...et voilà — it's ready to go into the fusion device.

Not quite that simple, but this is the procedure to eliminate unwanted magnetism from materials that will be installed in the vessel of MAST-Upgrade, the new UK fusion experiment that is being built at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE, UK).

Stainless steel is used because it is strong, cheap and can be non-magnetic. For MAST-Upgrade, the latter property is particularly important. In a tokamak, hot plasma fuel is confined using strong magnetic coils. So machine components with low magnetism are necessary to avoid perturbing the magnetic configurations and to achieve accurate measurement of the tokamak's magnetic field. However, stainless steel as supplied can be slightly magnetic. If left untreated this would cause stray magnetic fields when MAST-Upgrade is operated and also make magnetic measurements less accurate.

Baking the steel reorders its crystal structure to reduce the extent to which it becomes magnetised without significantly affecting its other properties. Over the past nine months, various parts have been heat-treated in ovens at the Special Techniques Group workshop at the Culham site.

"It's an effective method and although it might seem low-tech, there's a hi-tech reason behind it," explains CCFE Work Package Manager James Foster. "There isn't one 'recipe' that fits everything, so each component has a different formula — just like in baking at home."

Read the original article on the CCFE website.

Register now for the ITER Business Forum 2015 in Marseille
09 Jan 2015


The ITER Business Forum 2015 (IBF/15) will take place in Marseille, France, from 25 to 27 March 2015 with the participation and support of the ITER Organization and the ITER Domestic Agencies (in particular the European Domestic Agency, Fusion for Energy), the Industrial Liaison Officers (ILO) network, Agence ITER France, and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Marseille-Provence.
Just like the events held in 2007, 2011 and 2013, the fourth ITER Business Forum will provide industry with updated information on the ITER Project and on procurement procedures and forthcoming calls for tenders (2015-2016). It also aims to facilitate industrial partnerships—around the ITER project and beyond—inside of Europe and internationally (for example: consortia to answer calls for tender, industrial partnerships, subcontracting, local support).
IBF/15 will include:
-          an industrial conference with presentations given by the ITER Organization, Domestic Agencies and their main suppliers;
-          one-to-one meetings on 26 and 27 March 2015;
-          an optional program of technical tours on 25 March, including a visit of the ITER worksite;
-          a welcome reception on 25 March in the evening and a gala dinner on 26 March at the venue.
Registration for participation in IBF/15 is now open here.
Collaboration with the Host Organization CEA
05 Jan 2015
Since the early days of project implementation in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France, ITER's closest neighbour and host—the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, CEA (Cadarache site)—has provided a number of services to the ITER Organization.

These services are provided within the framework of the Site Support Agreement, which was signed in 2009 by the two entities as foreseen in the ITER Agreement and its Annex on Site Support. Regular meetings of the Site Liaison Committee, bringing together representatives from both organizations, are the occasion to discuss pending issues, exchange information and review actions underway. 
On 10 December 2014, during the 10th Site Liaison Committee meeting, the ITER Organization and the CEA signed two agreements.
 
1. Agreement on organizational modalities in the event of emergency situations
Agreement which defines the information, support and response modalities between the CEA/Cadarache and the ITER Organization in the event of any emergency liable to trigger, or not, emergency action plans.
2. Agreement related to the management of environmental aspects on the ITER site
Agreement which defines the relations between the ITER Organization and Agence Iter France (the CEA agency created to manage the French contribution to the project) related to the environmental commitments undertaken by Agence Iter France, such as the definition of an environmental management plan for the 1,200 hectares on and around the ITER site.
This agreement entered into force on 10 December 2014 and is concluded for the duration of implementation of the environmental management plan (31 December 2032).
An aerial view of the CEA-Cadarache site.
Korea awards contract for vacuum vessel gravity supports
05 Jan 2015
The Korean Domestic Agency signed an important contract with Korean supplier Wonil Corp. for the ITER vacuum vessel gravity supports on 11 December 2014. Nine sets of gravity supports will be assembled under the lower ports to allow for the vacuum vessel's thermal expansion and to sustain loads in the radial, toroidal and vertical directions.

The supplier Wonil Corp. is a leading company in the heavy machining industry and has good experience with the ITER quality system through its participation in the procurement of the ITER blanket shield blocks and the assembly tooling. During the signing ceremony, the company strongly expressed its enthusiasm to carry out the mission and meet the demands of the vacuum vessel schedule and quality requirements for ITER.
 
- Ji-Min Song, ITER Korea
Now on show: the ITER absolute valve
05 Jan 2015
Visitors coming to the ITER site will from now on have one more attraction to discover: The mock-up of an ITER absolute valve seal and test rig, used to demonstrate the feasibility of the largest high pressure, all-metal valve, ever to be manufactured.

 

ITER will rely on two very powerful neutral beam injectors to heat the plasma to fusion temperatures. A third injector will also be installed—the diagnostic neutral beam injector—which is used as a diagnostic for the plasma.

 

Each injector contains a vacuum vessel which needs to be vented to atmospheric pressure independently from the torus vacuum vessel in case of an incident. An absolute valve has thus been developed by the Swiss company VAT to "absolutely" isolate the vacuum in the torus from the neutral beam vacuum systems.

 

The valve uses seals made of stainless steel with silver coating to ensure high vacuum tightness up to a pressure differential of 0.1 MPa across the plate while maintaining a leak rate of less than 1·10-8 Pa·m3/s 1, but can withstand up to 0.2 MPa without incurring damage. With a nominal bore dimension of 1600 mm this absolute valve will be the largest ever manufactured, approximately five times bigger than existing products.

December 2014 issue of Fusion in Europe
05 Jan 2015
The December 2014 issue of Fusion in Europe focuses on work underway—including novel types of simulations and materials research—to support the early design of DEMO, the machine that will come after ITER. The issue also covers the reorganization of fusion research in Europe under the banner of EUROfusion and brings news from some of the experiments planned in European fusion facilities in support of ITER.
 

You can read the latest Fusion in Europe here.

Assystem releases three videos on its participation in ITER
05 Jan 2015
Assystem, a leading international group in the fields of engineering and innovation consultancy, is part of the ENGAGE consortium (Assystem, France; Atkins, UK; Empresados Agrupados, Spain; and Iosis, France) that was chosen in 2010 as architect/engineer for ITER site construction by the European Domestic Agency, Fusion for Energy (F4E).
 
The company is also contributing to the project by providing expertise in such domains as design, construction, machine assembly, and the manufacturing of high technology remote handling systems for the ITER divertor.
 
In December, Assystem released a series of three corporate videos highlighting its contributions to ITER. About 100 people attended a showing organized near the ITER site, including Assystem executives Stéphane Aubarbier (Executive Vice-President), Christian Jeanneau (Engineering and Operation Services Director General) and Bernard Blanc (Nuclear Business Development Manager); the mayor of Vinon-sur-Verdon, Claude Cheilan; Site, Buildings and Power Supplies Project Manager for the European Domestic Agency, Laurent Schmieder; and Michel Claessens, Head of Communication at the ITER Organization.
 
The three videos can be viewed here.
The future of fusion power
05 Jan 2015
​The next two years in MIT's Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) may see fusion research embark on a landmark period of innovation. In his address to the NSE community in the inaugural Del Favero Doctoral Thesis Prize Lecture, Zach Hartwig PhD '14 not only described his group's research achievements but also explained why, in his view, fusion research should now be at the top of the department's agenda. Hartwig argued that U.S. fusion research, which has been focused on physics for the past two decades, now needs to incorporate more attention to engineering, utility integration, and economics as it transitions to building devices that will produce energy — and that this can be achieved by leveraging the tremendous engineering and systems expertise of NSE.

Read the whole article on the MIT News website.

2014

ITER hosts an international workshop on remuneration
15 Dec 2014
On 5 December 2014, Osamu Motojima, Director-General of the ITER Organization, opened a day-long international workshop on remuneration. Organized by ITER's Human Resources Division, the workshop gathered over 40 participants from international organizations.

The ITER Organization has been part of a coordinated system network of international organizations since 2008 and was pleased to act as host on this important occasion.
The network organizes regular workshops for human resource professionals and legal specialists in the fields of remuneration and pension, enabling international organizations to share their experience and forge valuable contacts. 
Turning out one radial plate per month
15 Dec 2014
Inside of ITER's large D-shaped toroidal field coils, the stacked layers of conductor will be held in place by radial plates—large steel structures with grooves machined on either side.

In 2012, the European Domestic Agency awarded a EUR 160 million contract for the fabrication of 70 radial plates to a French-Italian consortium, CNIM (France)-SIMIC (Italy) and manufacturing is currently underway.

In this promotional video produced by CNIM, the camera takes us inside the 3,000 m2 factory in Toulon, France that was specially constructed for CNIM's share of the radial plate contract. One radial plate comes off of the manufacturing line per month, thanks to a team of 50 skilled employees organized in three shifts.

Three years of investment in R&D and industrial processes and the construction of a 9 x 36 metre machining centre were necessary to perfect the highly technological machining and welding of the ITER radial plates.

View the CNIM video here.
New director for MIT fusion centre
15 Dec 2014
​In November, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced a new director for its Plasma Science and Fusion Center, home to the Alcator C-Mod tokamak.

As of 1 January 2015, Dennis Whyte, professor of nuclear science and engineering, will replace Miklos Porkolab, who returns to teaching and research after nearly 20 years as head of the research centre.

In the announcement, Maria Zuber, MIT's vice president for research, thanked Porkolab "for almost 20 years of distinguished leadership and contributions to MIT and the fusion energy community worldwide."

Whyte is a recognized leader in the field of nuclear fusion, with his research addressing the boundary plasma-material interfaces in magnetic fusion.

He received his PhD from the University of Québec's National Institute of Scientific Research in 1993 and joined the MIT faculty in 2006. His recent research has focused on the novel application of high-energy ion beams for real-time material interrogation in fusion environments, and the use of new high magnetic field superconductor materials for compact, robust fusion pilot plants for electricity production. He was recently recognized with the International Atomic Energy Agency's 2013 Nuclear Fusion Journal Prize, which was presented at the 25th biennial IAEA Fusion Energy Conference last month, for research carried out on Alcator C-Mod.

Read the full story on the MIT website.

Rebuild of UK's MAST tokamak continues
12 Dec 2014
​The Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) facility at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) is undergoing a major £30 million upgrade that will enhance the UK's role in international fusion research.

When completed in 2015, MAST-Upgrade will enable scientists to:

Make the case for a fusion Component Test Facility (CTF). A CTF would test reactor systems for the DEMO prototype fusion power plant, and a spherical tokamak is seen as an ideal design for the facility;

Add to the knowledge base for ITER and help resolve key plasma physics issues to ensure its success;

Test reactor systems. MAST-Upgrade will be the first tokamak to trial the innovative Super-X divertor — a high-power exhaust system that reduces power loads from particles leaving the plasma. If successful, Super-X could be used in DEMO and other future fusion devices.

In December, the second of four poloidal field coils was installed as planned. All four coils should be in place early in the New Year.

Read the story on the CCFE website

Top management changes at Fusion for Energy
03 Dec 2014
​The Governing Board of the European Domestic Agency for ITER Fusion for Energy (F4E) has decided to appoint Dr Pietro Barabaschi as Acting Director of F4E with effect from 1 March 2015 until a new Director takes up duties. The Governing Board has also agreed to initiate the process to recruit a new Director.

Dr Barabaschi will replace the outgoing Director, Professor Henrik Bindslev, who will leave F4E on 28 February 2015. Professor Bindslev has been appointed Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Southern Denmark.

The Chair of the Governing Board, Mr Stuart Ward, expressed, on behalf of its members, his gratitude to Professor Henrik Bindslev for the vision and leadership that he has demonstrated as the Director of F4E, which manages Europe's contribution to ITER and the Broader Approach projects with Japan.

Dr Barabaschi has been head of F4E's Broader Fusion Development Department at Garching, Germany, since 2008. An electrical engineer, he started his career in the JET project. In 1992 he joined the ITER Joint Central Team in San Diego and by 2006 he was the deputy to the Project Leader as well as head of the Design Integration Division of the ITER International Team at Garching.

See the original story on the F4E website.

Francesco Romanelli bids farewell to EUROfusion
03 Dec 2014
With a lecture on the subject of "The Fusion Roadmap and the challenges of the ITER era," Francesco Romanelli completed his tenure as EFDA Leader and EFDA Associate Leader for JET on 28 November.
 
As EFDA and JET Leader and interim Programme Manager during the first months of EUROfusion, Francesco Romanelli was the driving force behind the European Fusion Roadmap and had played a key role in re-definition of the fusion research programme in the European Commission research and innovation program Horizon 2020.
 
In his talk, he briefly reviewed the history of fusion research since the 1960s. Looking back on his time at JET, he made the audience smile when he pointed out that "the average life-time of a JET director was either seven months or seven years. I can claim to have stayed the longest—seven years AND seven months."
 
He finished by thanking the many individuals and groups who made the roadmap and the successes in JET happen. Steve Cowley, Director of CCFE, reminded the audience of Francesco Romanelli's scientific career in theoretical fusion science and his papers which are still highly important. "I have an enormous respect for Francesco, he said". "Fusion owes him a great deal."
 
EUROfusion Programme Manager Tony Donné, paid respect to the tremendous amount of work which had been done under Francesco's leadership.
 
Read the full article on the EUROfusion website.
 
-- Francesco Romanelli poses with family members at the farewell event.
ITER Russia opens its doors to young researchers
03 Dec 2014
​For the third consecutive year, young scientists involved with ITER Project implementation from Russia's major research centres were invited to the Russian Domestic Agency in the framework of the 57th Scientific Conference of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT).

Academician Evgeny Velikhov, ITER Council member and president of the Kurchatov Institute, gave the opening, stressing that "ITER is not only a scientific facility; it is also a technological platform that will provide the basis for fusion energy in the future."

Participants heard reports on R&D and manufacturing progress for ITER key components, including diagnostic systems (Budker Institute, Novosibirsk; MIPT, Dolgoprudnyj; TRINITI, Troitsk; Kurchatov Institute, Moscow), blanket modules (Efremov Institute, Saint Petersburg; Dollezhal Institute, Moscow), and high-temperature testing of in-vessel components (Efremov Institute, Saint Petersburg; MEPhI, Moscow).

Evgeny Velikhov concluded the conference by expressing confidence that "sooner or later humanity will certainly come to fusion."

 
Daniel Clery on "A Piece of the Sun"
28 Nov 2014
Science writer Daniel Clery visited the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) recently to talk about his book on the history of fusion, A Piece of the Sun.

The book tells the story of the quest for fusion energy, from the discovery of nuclear fusion as the Sun's power source in the early 20th century through to the latest advances in magnetic and laser fusion research as the glittering prize of near-endless energy gets closer. It is a compelling account of the ups and downs of the research, the events and personalities involved, and the science of fusion.
Daniel gave a lecture at CCFE on the "Many Faces of Fusion," based on the book.
View the conference and interview on the CCFE website.
Rob Goldston among Foreign Policy magazine's 100 top global thinkers
26 Nov 2014
​Editors of Foreign Policy magazine have named fusion physicist Rob Goldston, a Princeton University professor of astrophysical sciences and former director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), to its list of "100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2014." The recognition, made 17 November at a celebration in Washington, D.C., honoured Goldston for his contributions to the field of nuclear arms control.

Founded in 1970, Foreign Policy focuses on global affairs, current events and domestic and international affairs. It produces daily content on its website, ForeignPolicy.com and publishes six print issues annually.

Named with Goldston were Princeton physicist Alex Glaser and Boaz Barak of Microsoft Research New England. The researchers have designed a novel process called a "zero-knowledge protocol" for verifying that nuclear weapons to be dismantled or removed from deployment contain true warheads. Goldston and Glaser are developing a prototype system at PPPL that will test the idea by beaming neutrons at a non-nuclear test object.

 
Photo: Alex Glaser, left, and Rob Goldston, seen here with a non-nuclear test object.

 
Read more on the PPPL website.

Supercomputer lends insight into plasma dynamics
24 Nov 2014
​Studying the intricacies and mysteries of the sun is physicist Wendell Horton life's work. A widely known authority on plasma physics, his study of the high temperature gases on the sun, or plasma, consistently leads him around the world to work on a diverse range of projects that have great impact.

Fusion energy is one such key scientific issue that Horton is investigating and one that has intrigued researchers for decades.

[...]

Through the Institute for Fusion Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, Horton collaborates with researchers at ITER, a fusion lab in France and the National Institute for Fusion Science in Japan to address these challenges. At ITER, Horton is working with researchers to build the world's largest tokamak—the device that is leading the way to produce fusion energy in the laboratory.

Perfecting the design of the tokamak is essential to producing , and since it is not fully developed, Horton performs supercomputer simulations on the Stampede supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to model plasma flow and turbulence inside the device.

"Simulations give us information about plasma in three dimensions and in time, so that we are able to see details beyond what we would get with analytic theory and probes and high-tech diagnostic measurements," Horton said.

The simulations also give researchers a more holistic picture of what is needed to improve the tokamak design. Comparing simulations with fusion experiments in nuclear labs around the world helps Horton and other researchers move even closer to this breakthrough energy source.


Read the full article on PhysOrg
Latest newsletter for the US ITER Project Office
21 Nov 2014
The November issue of the US ITER News Update is available on line.

It includes a full review of the status of US procurement for ITER and excerpts from the July 2014 Statement of Ned Sauthoff, director of the US ITER Project Office, before the Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, Space and Technology at the US House of Representatives.
FuseNet launches new education support schemes
17 Nov 2014
​FuseNet, the European platform to coordinate and improve fusion education, has launched a new student support scheme in cooperation with and funded by the EUROfusion consortium:

- Support for Master students to go abroad for an internship in a fusion group or at a research institute.
- Support for Master and PhD students to follow educational training activities external to their own organisation (such as summer schools, master classes and workshops with a dominant educational character).
- Support for PhD students to take part in research at another universities' fusion group or at a research laboratory for shorter periods than a full internship.
Being a member of FuseNet, the ITER Organization is entitled to make use of this very attractive scheme by offering internships at ITER or research trips for PhD students.
For more information please check the FuseNet website.
 
First Highly Exceptional Load sails to ITER
17 Nov 2014
On Friday 14 November, the first Highly Exceptional Load (HEL) destined to the ITER site was loaded onto the container ship CMA-Ivanhoe in the port of Busan, South Korea, to begin its five-week journey to France.

On board is the 87-ton main body of one high voltage substation transformer unit (part of the ITER steady state electrical network) as well as 39 wooden crates packed with the transformer's auxiliary components. The equipment was procured by the US and manufactured by Hyundai Heavy Industry in Ulsan, South Korea. Three identical transformers will be shipped to ITER in the coming months.
 
Ivanhoe should reach the Mediterranean harbour of Fos-sur-Mer on 19 December. There, the transformer main body will be unloaded and staged until 9 January 2015, when it will be transferred to a trailer.
 
The trailer will be loaded onto a barge to cross the inland sea Étang-de-Berre before travelling 104 kilometres along the ITER Itinerary, for delivery to  the ITER site in the early hours of 14 January.
Princeton researchers present cutting edge results at APS Plasma Physics Conference
13 Nov 2014
​Some 135 researchers, graduate students, and staff members from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL, US)) joined 1,500 research scientists from around the world at the 56th annual meeting of the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics Conference from 27 to 31 October in New Orleans.

Topics in the sessions ranged from waves in plasma to the physics of ITER and women in plasma physics. Dozens of PPPL scientists presented the results of their cutting-edge research in magnetic fusion and plasma science. There were about 100 invited speakers at the conference, more than a dozen of whom were from PPPL.

Read the full article and access the topical press releases on the PPPL website.

Hole in one: Centre stack smoothly installed in NSTX-U
13 Nov 2014
​With near-surgical precision, technicians at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL, US) hoisted the 29,000-pound (13,000-kilo) centre stack for the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade, NSTX-U, over a 20-foot (6-metre) wall and lowered it into the vacuum vessel of the fusion facility. The smooth operation on 24 October capped more than two years of construction of the centre stack, which houses the bundle of magnetic coils that form the heart of the $94 million (EUR 19 million) upgrade.

"This was really a watershed moment," said Mike Williams, the head of engineering and infrastructure at PPPL and associate director of the Laboratory. "The critical path [or key sequence of steps for the upgrade] was fabrication of the magnets, and that has now been done."

The lift team conducted the final steps largely in silence, attaching the bundled coils in their casing to an overhead crane and guiding the 21 foot-long (6.4-metre) centre stack into place. The clearances were tiny: the bottom of the casing passed just inches over the shielding wall and the top of the vacuum vessel. Inserting the centre stack into the vessel was like threading a needle, since the clearance at the opening was only about an inch. Guidance came chiefly from hand signals, with some radio communication at the end.
Read the full article on the PPPL website.
A rare and beautiful sight
10 Nov 2014
Wildlife is thriving on the ITER site. Wild boars, mouflon goats and deer freely roam the vast expanses of forest that surround the installation.

This picture of two young does was taken last week by APAVE's Health and Safety Coordinator Laurent Feron, as he drove along the track leading to the Logistics Platform located behind the hill on the east side of the worksite.

These does are no ordinary animals — they are descendants of the two pairs of Sikka deer that were offered to French President Sadi Carnot by the Emperor of Japan Mutsuhito, the "Meiji Emperor", in 1890.
The two couples were originally hosted in the Presidential Hunting Reserve near Paris. By 1928, the original four had become a small herd, and a few individuals were entrusted to various national parks and wildlife reservations.
The National Forest in Cadarache was one of them. Eighty-six years later, the Emperor's deer are still here, scattered between the CEA-Cadarache enclosure, the National Forestry Commission reserve and the outskirts of the ITER site.
 
Call for abstracts: EST-Energy Conference 2015
07 Nov 2014
​From 20-22 May 2015 the ENERGY, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Conference and Exhibition (EST-Energy) will be taking place at the Karlsruhe Convention Center in Germany.

The conference will focus on all energy-related topics with an emphasis on renewable and CO2-free forms of energy.

The establishment of a sustainable, reliable and achievable energy system needs a worldwide cross-linked effort. Research, development and implementation of innovations by both the scientific community as well as industry is necessary. EST-Energy 2015 aims to provide a platform for the most recent research findings and allow participants to network with other researchers and engineers from all over the world.

Fusion is one of the themes of the conference. A call for abstracts has been launched for topics that fall in the following categories: ITER- and DEMO-related issues, the development strategies of new fusion devices (W7-X, JT-60 SA... ), and technical issues that may be of interest to others.

The deadline for paper abstracts is 15 December 2014. All information can be found on the conference website.

Lab develops infrared camera system to view tokamak from the inside
05 Nov 2014
​Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers, in collaboration with General Atomics and the University of Arizona, have developed an infrared and visible camera viewing system that's able to produce wide-angle, tangential views of full poloidal (north-south direction of the ) cross-sections inside the tokamak. The camera's images provide researchers with data about the interior conditions of the DIII-D, which was built under contract for the US Department of Energy.

"We wanted to look inside the tokamak's chamber to see where things were heating up on the walls," said Kevin Morris, a designer with LLNL's National Security Engineer Division, who was part of the research team that developed the . "There are a lot of critical areas that are heated by the plasma, and researchers want to understand them better."

...
The camera system consists of a commercially available infrared camera, a fast visible camera and an optical system designed by a collaboration of physicists, engineers, optical designers and mechanical designers.

Their design will be used as a prototype for a set of larger cameras that will be built for ITER.

Read the full story on the LLNL website here.

43-minute program on nuclear fusion: BBC Radio 4 "In Our Time"
31 Oct 2014
​Melvyn Bragg from "In Our Time" and his guests discuss nuclear fusion, the process that powers stars. In the 1920s physicists predicted that it might be possible to generate huge amounts of energy by fusing atomic nuclei together, a reaction requiring enormous temperatures and pressures. Today we know that this complex reaction is what keeps the Sun shining. Scientists have achieved fusion in the laboratory and in nuclear weapons; today it is seen as a likely future source of limitless and clean energy.

Guests:
Philippa Browning, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Manchester
Steve Cowley, Chief Executive of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority
Justin Wark, Professor of Physics and fellow of Trinity College at the University of Oxford

Producer: Thomas Morris.
 
Listen to the 43-minute program that aired on 30 October 2014 (9:30 p.m.) here.

University of Rome offers Fusion Master's courses
31 Oct 2014
​Where else would you like to study fusion science and engineering but in the heart of the Eternal City?

The second oldest public university in Rome, the University of Rome "Tor Vergata," has offered a Second Level Master course in Fusion Energy Science and Engineering since 2012. Open to postgraduates with a Master's degree or equivalent title, the course aims to train experts in the areas of machine operation, experimental practice both in magnetic confinement and inertial fusion, and fusion technology and engineering.

The next course starts on 2 February 2015. The duration of the course is one academic year but it can be extended to two academic years according to individual study plans.
Enrolment is open now. For more information, see the dedicated website, or contact:
Dr. Colomba Russo
Phone: +390672597201
October issue of F4E News
31 Oct 2014
The latest issue of the European Domestic Agency's newsletter, F4ENews, has just been released. You can consult it here.

Scientists use plasma shaping to control turbulence in stellarators
29 Oct 2014
​Researchers at the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics in Germany have devised a new method for minimizing turbulence in bumpy donut-shaped experimental fusion facilities called stellarators. This month in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, these authors describe an advanced application of the method that could help physicists overcome a major barrier to the production of fusion energy in such devices, and could also apply to their more widely used symmetrical donut-shaped cousins called tokamaks. This work was supported by the DOE Office of Science.

Turbulence allows the hot, charged plasma gas that fuels fusion reactions to escape from the magnetic fields that confine the gas in stellarators and tokamaks. This turbulent transport occurs at comparable levels in both devices, and has long been recognized as a challenge for both in producing fusion power economically.

"Confinement bears directly on the cost of fusion energy," said physicist Harry Mynick, a PPPL coauthor of the paper, "and we're finding how to reshape the plasma to enhance confinement."

The new method uses two types of advanced computer codes that have only recently become available. The authors modified these codes to address turbulent transport, evolving the starting design of a fusion device into one with reduced levels of turbulence. The current paper applies the new method to the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, soon to be the world's largest when construction is completed in Greifswald, Germany.

Results of the new method, which has also been successfully applied to the design of smaller stellarators and tokamaks, suggest how reshaping the plasma in a fusion device could produce much better confinement. Equivalently, improved plasma shaping could produce comparable confinement with reduced magnetic field strength or reduced facility size, with corresponding reductions in the cost of construction and operation.
 
Read the full report on the PPPL website.

-- Magnetic field strength in a turbulence-optimized stellarator design. Regions with the highest strength are shown in yellow.

 
Using radio waves to control the density in a fusion plasma
29 Oct 2014
​Recent fusion experiments on the DIII-D tokamak at General Atomics (California, US) and the Alcator C-Mod tokamak at MIT (Massachusetts, US), show that beaming microwaves into the centre of the plasma can be used to control the density in the centre of the plasma, where a fusion reactor would produce most of its power. Several megawatts of microwaves mimic the way fusion reactions would supply heat to plasma electrons to keep the "fusion burn" going.

The new experiments reveal that turbulent density fluctuations in the inner core intensify when most of the heat goes to electrons instead of plasma ions, as would happen in the center of a self-sustaining fusion reaction. Supercomputer simulations closely reproduce the experiments, showing that the electrons become more turbulent as they are more strongly heated, and this transports both particles and heat out of the plasma.

"We are beginning to uncover the fundamental mechanisms that control the density, under conditions relevant to a real fusion reactor," says Dr. Darin Ernst, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who led the experiments and simulations, together with co-leaders Dr. Keith Burrell (General Atomics), Dr. Walter Guttenfelder (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory), and Dr. Terry Rhodes (UCLA).

Read the full report on Science Daily.
 

--Supercomputer simulation shows turbulent density fluctuations in the core of the Alcator C-Mod tokamak during strong electron heating. Credit: D. R. Ernst, MIT
Upcoming colloquium on TFTR record fusion power shot
27 Oct 2014
​Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is organizing a colloquium on TFTR  record fusion power shot of December 1993.

More information here.

New Advisory Board to promote project and safety culture at ITER
27 Oct 2014
​In order to improve project performance and in light of the ITER Project's specific managerial and cultural complexities, an External Management Advisory Board (EMAB) was established earlier this year. This week, the members of the EMAB convened for their first meeting at ITER Headquarters.

The objective of the EMAB is to advise the ITER Organization's senior managers and the Director-General on enhancing project and safety culture, a challenging activity in the context of a mega international project with seven Members. Also, the Board is charged with assessing the practical implementation of the set of actions that was decided in response to the Management Assessment carried out in 2013.

The Chair of this new entity is Jean Jacquinot, who also serves as scientific advisor to the Chairman of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Bernard Bigot.

Other Board members are Michael Tendler, professor at Sweden's Alfvén Laboratory (Royal Institute of Technology); Richard Hawryluk, head of the department of ITER and Tokamaks at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (US); Dhiraj Bora, director of the Institute for Plasma Research, IPR (India); and Yuanxi Wan, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and former Chairman of the ITER Science and Technology Advisory Committee (STAC). ITER's Colette Ricketts, of the System Management Section, is in charge of the secretariat.

"During our first meeting held on 20-21 October, we had a very fruitful discussion," the Board members reported after the first meeting. "We openly addressed issues such as the project's nuclear and safety culture, options for improved alignment between the ITER Organization and the Domestic Agencies, and last but not least the creation of the ITER Chief Executive Team, (ICET), formed to improve collaboration between all actors of the ITER Project."

The Board will continue to address key ITER management issues at its next meeting, scheduled for 11-12 December 2014.

Puzzling new behavior found in high-temperature superconductors
23 Oct 2014
​Research by an international team led by SLAC and Stanford scientists has uncovered a new, unpredicted behavior in a copper oxide material that becomes superconducting — conducting electricity without any loss — at relatively high temperatures.

This new phenomenon — an unforeseen collective motion of electric charges coursing through the material — presents a challenge to scientists seeking to understand its origin and connection with high-temperature superconductivity. Their ultimate goal is to design a superconducting material that works at room temperature.

"Making a room-temperature superconductor would save the world enormous amounts of energy," said Thomas Devereaux, leader of the research team and director of the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES), which is jointly run with SLAC. "But to do that we must understand what's happening inside the materials as they become superconducting. This result adds a new piece to this long-standing puzzle."

The results were published 19 October in Nature Physics.
 

Read the full article on the SLAC website.

Latest news from Korea's fusion research program
20 Oct 2014
​In the latest newsletter published by Korea's National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI), read how the KSTAR tokamak has topped 10,000 plasma generation experiments since 2009 and how tokamak technologies have found their way into applications in the food and defence industries.

The 7th issue of NFRI News is available here.

Russia and China to develop hybrid reactor
17 Oct 2014
​Russia is developing a hybrid nuclear reactor that uses both nuclear fusion and fission, said head of leading nuclear research facility. The project is open for international collaboration, particularly from Chinese scientists.

A hybrid nuclear reactor is a sort of stepping stone to building a true nuclear fusion reactor. It uses a fusion reaction as a source of neutrons to initiate a fission reaction in a 'blanket' of traditional nuclear fuel.

The approach has a number of potential benefits in terms of safety, non-proliferation and cost of generated energy, and Russia is developing such a hybrid reactor, according to Mikhail Kovalchuk, director of the Kurchatov Research Center.

"Today we have started the realization of a distinctively new project. We are trying to combine a schematically operational nuclear plant reactor with a 'tokamak' to create a hybrid reactor," he told RIA Novosti, referring to a type of fusion reactor design.

Photo:  Director of the Kurchatov Research Center Mikhail Kovalchuk
 Read the whole story on the Russia Today website and also (in Russian) on the Newsland website.
Manufacturing for acceleration grid power supplies has started in India
17 Oct 2014
​Manufacturing is underway in India for the acceleration grid power supplies that will be supplied to the SPIDER test bed in Italy as well as to ITER's diagnostic neutral beam.

 
The technical specifications for both acceleration grid power supplies are similar (system rated for 96 kVDC, 75 A). The SPIDER test bed is designed to finalize the development of the ion sources required for the ITER neutral beam injectors and to test all essential aspects of the diagnostic neutral beam accelerator.
 
Following the Final Design Review held in August 2013 for the acceleration grid power supplies, a Manufacturing Readiness Review was conducted early this year at the Indian Domestic Agency with the participation of the ITER Organization and ECIL, the Indian manufacturer responsible for the fabrication of the system and its installation at the SPIDER test bed in Padua, Italy.
 
Major components of the acceleration grid power supplies—60 kW water-cooled switched power supply modules and 2.8 MVA oil-cooled multi-secondary transformers—are presently being inspected at intermediate stages and the factory acceptance test for the first batch is scheduled for the end of November 2014.
 
Discussions are also being held with local support agencies for SPIDER site works with coordination assistance from the Consorzio RFX team in Padua.
 
Dilshad Sulaiman, ITER India
 
 
 
Three hours with an ITER physicist on web radio
15 Oct 2014
The German science and engineering website Tau Omega recently featured a three-hour audio interview of ​ITER physicist Richard Pitts. The program focuses on the physics and the engineering challenges of ITER, but also addresses some of the unique organizational aspects of the project.

General Atomics physicist gets top fusion award
15 Oct 2014
​A General Atomics physicist has won one of the most prestigious awards in fusion energy research, it was announced this week at a major international scientific conference in Russia.

Dr. Philip Snyder, who works in General Atomics' San Diego headquarters, received the 2014 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Nuclear Fusion Prize. The award was announced at the biennial conference during the opening ceremony of the 25th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference being held 13-18 October in St. Petersburg.

Dr. Snyder won the prize for his published scientific paper judged to provide the most impact in nuclear fusion over the last two years. Dr. Snyder has spent the last 15 years working in fusion research at General Atomics, where he serves as Director of Theory and Computational Science for the Energy and Advanced Concepts Group.

Read more on the Energy Industry Today website.
World's largest fusion conference opens in St. Petersburg
13 Oct 2014
The 25th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2014) will be held from 13 to 18 October 2014 in Saint Petersburg, the Russian Federation.
 
The event, hosted by the Government of the Russian Federation through the Rosatom Nuclear Energy State Corporation, provides a forum for the discussion of key physics and technology issues as well as innovative concepts of direct relevance to fusion as a source of nuclear energy. The Conference is the world's largest conference in the field of nuclear fusion.
 
Thematic sessions on topics such as fusion engineering, fusion nuclear physics and technology, innovative confinement concepts and more will be held as part of the Conference, which also includes the awarding of a Nuclear Fusion Prize for outstanding achievements in nuclear fusion.
 
The IAEA hosts an International Conference on Nuclear Fusion Energy every second year. More information is available at the conference website.
Sandia's Z machine makes progress toward nuclear fusion
13 Oct 2014
​Scientists are reporting a significant advance in the quest to develop an alternative approach to nuclear fusion. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, using the lab's Z machine, a colossal electric pulse generator capable of producing currents of tens of millions of amperes, say they have detected significant numbers of neutrons—byproducts of fusion reactions—coming from the experiment. This, they say, demonstrates the viability of their approach and marks progress toward the ultimate goal of producing more energy than the fusion device takes in.

Read more on Science web site.

Latest "Fusion in Europe" is out
13 Oct 2014
​The autumn issue of Fusion in Europe is available for download at this link.

The 20-page issue covers the recent launch of EUROfusion (the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy), preparations for the initial plasma experiments on the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator (scheduled next year), and news from the control rooms of the JET and ASDEX Upgrade tokamaks.

Fusion in Europe is published three times per year.

EFDA becomes EUROfusion
10 Oct 2014
​On 9 October 2014 the European Commission officially launched the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, EUROfusion for short. EUROfusion manages the European fusion research activities on behalf of Euratom, which awards the appropriate grant to the consortium.

The new consortium agreement will substitute the fourteen year-old European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA), as well as 29 bilateral Association agreements between the Commission and research institutions in 27 countries. The Grant Agreement (contract) provides EUR 424 million in funding from the Euratom Horizon 2020 programme 2014-18 and the same amount from Member States, adding up to an overall budget of EUR 850 million for 5 years.

The launch of EUROfusion was celebrated with Europe's fusion research community in the heart of the European Quarter, the Solvay Library.

Read the full report on the new EUROfusion website here.

Divertor cassette replaced by remote control at VTT Finland
07 Oct 2014
​VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has reached an important objective in the development of ITER fusion reactor remote control, when the divertor cassette was replaced for the first time using remote control in the research facility for remote controlled maintenance. This operation is one of the most demanding measures in the forthcoming ITER fusion reactor, the construction of which is proceeding rapidly in Cadarache, Southern France.

The requirements for the technologies used in ITER, are high, since they are used to control the fusion plasma burning at a temperature of hundred million degrees centigrade. Once the ITER comes into use, its core is activated when bombed by neutrons. Therefore, all maintenance, inspection and repair measures are performed using remote operation.

Located in the lower part of the ITER reactor chamber, the 54 cassettes of the reactor component, or the divertor, measuring 3.4 m x 2.3 m x 0.6 m and weighing approximately 10 tonnes each, need to be handled at tolerances of a few millimetres. The divertor cassette is like a giant ashtray, into which the hot ashes and impurities settle.
 
Read more on the PhysOrg website.
F4E business forum announced
06 Oct 2014
The European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy (F4E), is organizing a major business event from 10 to 12 June 2015.

The Fusion for Energy Forum is designed as a networking event, aiming to bring together industry representatives, SMEs, European fusion laboratories and policy makers around ITER business opportunities.

Participants will have access to the latest information regarding Europe's procurement strategies, the opportunity to meet with F4E procurement staff and the possiblity of creating ties through business to business (B2B) sessions.

All information on the Fusion for Energy Forum is centralized on the event website.

WEST Newsletter #6 is out
06 Oct 2014
The Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research, ITER's neighbour in Saint Paul-lez-Durance, has published issue #6 of the WEST newsletter.

The issue features a report on the 1st international WEST workshop held in Aix-en-Provence on 30 June-2 July and several articles documenting the project's progress.

WEST stands for (W Environment in Steady-state Tokamak), where "W" is the chemical symbol of tungsten.

Read WEST Newsletter #6 here.

New European innovation award goes to KIT researchers
03 Oct 2014
German researchers Christian Day and Thomas Giegerich from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are the first recipients of the European Prize for Innovation in Fusion Research launched by the European Commission. The prize—a new funding instrument introduced by the Horizon 2020 Program—rewards excellence in innovation in the fusion research program as well as the quality of the researchers and industries involved.

The winners were announced on Tuesday 30 September during the 28th Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT) in San Sebastian, Spain. The winning innovation—called KALPUREX (short for: Karlsruhe liquid metal based pumping process for fusion reactor exhaust gases)—is a novel fuel cycle concept for DEMO and future fusion power plants.
While ITER will rely on a cryogenic pumping and gas separation system, the gas throughput within a fusion power plant is expected to be many factors higher. Increasing the cryogenic pumping and separating capacities would require even larger and more expensive cryogenic facilities, clearly impacting plant investment and operational costs.
 
The KALPUREX design concept proposes non-cryogenic vacuum pumping, based on continuous operation (important to limiting fuel build-up in the machine) and gas separation close to the torus vessel (allowing a direct shortcut between the pumping and the fuelling systems). Tests have been performed at KIT on vacuum pumps capable of performing continually and three technologies were identified—a metal foil pump, a vapor diffusion pump and a modified liquid ring pump (much used in the chemical industry).
 
A patent has been filed for the KALPUREX process, which is expected to be of high interest to European industry. For more information on the KALPUREX design, please contact Christian Day directly at christian.day@kit.edu.
 
Sabina Griffith​
 
--Pictured: Christian Day and Thomas Giegerich from KIT
European Commission launches EUROfusion
01 Oct 2014
​On 9 October 2014 the European Commission invites the fusion community into the heart of the European Quarter, the Solvay Library, to officially launch the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, EUROfusion for short. The new consortium agreement will substitute the fourteen year-old European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA), as well as 29 bilateral Association agreements between the Commission and research institutions in 27 countries.

The formation of EUROfusion marks a big step forward for Europe's quest to develop fusion power as a climate-friendly energy source that will contribute to meet a growing global energy demand. The EUROfusion Consortium enables Europe's national laboratories to pool their resources even more efficiently — a measure which became necessary to meet the challenge of increasingly complex and large-scale projects such as ITER and DEMO.

The preparation for such a joint fusion programme started in 2012. All EU research laboratories jointly drafted a detailed goal-oriented programme to realise fusion energy by 2050. This programme, known as the 'Roadmap to the Realisation of Fusion Electricity' outlines the most efficient path to fusion power. By the end of that year it was endorsed by all parties.

The roadmap has two main aims: Preparing for ITER experiments in order to ensure that Europe makes best possible use of ITER and to develop concepts for a fusion power demonstration plant DEMO. The necessary research towards reaching these aims is carried out by universities and research centres within the current European Framework Programme Horizon 2020. More than before does the programme involve industries in the process of designing components and finding technical solutions.

Through EUROfusion, the European fusion research programme will have direct access to various European experiments that are relevant to fulfil roadmap missions. The world's largest magnetic fusion experiment, the Joint European Torus (JET) in Culham, UK, will continue to be exploited by EUROfusion until 2018. JET, often nicknamed "Little ITER", has already been paving the way for ITER and continues to align its scientific programme to ITER needs.

The Solvay library is the ideal venue for the launch of EUROfusion: inaugurated in 1902 its architecture accommodated new ways of academic teaching. The new architecture of EUROfusion strengthens Europe's leading position in fusion research by integrating a strong central programming.

Article orginally posted on the EFDA website.

Headquarters extension handed over to ITER
01 Oct 2014
​The extension to the ITER Headquarters to the ITER Organization was handed over on 30 September in a ceremony during which Tim Watson, head of the Buildings and Site Infrastructure Directorate, accepted the building from the contractor Travaux du Midi.

The 3,500-square-metre extension (5 storeys high, 35 metres long) will share the same architectural features as the existing building. It will accomodate some 350 ITER staff and contractors  presently hosted in buildings one kilometre away.

Moving will be organized in stages from October to December 2014.

From left to right: Tim Watson, head of the ITER Buildings & Site Directorate; architect Tillman Reichert (Ricciotti Architects); and Pierre Bisagno of Les Travaux du Midi.

Physicists use supercomputer to gain insight into plasma dynamics
01 Oct 2014
​Studying the intricacies and mysteries of the sun is physicist Wendell Horton life's work. A widely known authority on plasma physics, his study of the high temperature gases on the sun, or plasma, consistently leads him around the world to work on a diverse range of projects that have great impact.

Fusion energy is one such key scientific issue that Horton is investigating and one that has intrigued researchers for decades.
...

It's no secret that the demand for energy around the world is outpacing the supply. Fusion energy has tremendous potential, however, harnessing the power of the sun for this burgeoning energy source requires extensive work.

Through the Institute for Fusion Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, Horton collaborates with researchers at ITER, a fusion lab in France and the National Institute for Fusion Science in Japan to address these challenges. At ITER, Horton is working with researchers to build the world's largest tokamak—the device that is leading the way to produce fusion energy in the laboratory.
...

Perfecting the design of the tokamak is essential to producing and since it is not fully developed, Horton performs supercomputer simulations on the Stampede supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to model plasma flow and turbulence inside the device.

"Simulations give us information about plasma in three dimensions and in time, so that we are able to see details beyond what we would get with analytic theory and probes and high-tech diagnostic measurements," Horton said


Read more at PhysOrg.
 

28th Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT 2014) opens
30 Sep 2014
​The leading event worldwide for the exchange information on the design, construction and operation of fusion experiments—and on the technology for present fusion machines and future power plants—got off to a start on Monday 29 September in San Sebastián, Spain.

In front of the 800 scientists, engineers, developers, manufacturers and students taking part in the week-long event, ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima presented the "Progress and planning of ITER" in one of the first introductory sessions.

The symposium, organized by the Spanish Research Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology (CIEMAT), continues through Friday 3 October with oral and poster presentations, industrial and R&D exhibitions, and an ITER Industrial Infoday on Tuesday 30 September.

CERN: 60 years of peaceful collaboration for science
30 Sep 2014
On Monday 29 September, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, celebrated its 60th anniversary with an event attended by delegations from 35 countries.

Founded in 1954, CERN's origins can be traced back to the aftermath of the Second World War, when a small group of visionary scientists and public administrators on both sides of the Atlantic identified fundamental research as a potential vehicle to rebuild the continent and to foster peace in a troubled region.

Today, CERN is the largest particle physics laboratory in the world and a prime example of international collaboration, bringing together scientists representing almost 100 nationalities.

A full report and videos are available on the CERN website.

The CERN-ITER collaboration
29 Sep 2014
​In November 2006, the last LHC dipole and quadrupole cold masses arrived at CERN, signalling the end of the industrial construction of the major components of the new 27-km particle collider (CERN Courier October 2006 p28 and January/February 2007 p25).

The LHC then entered the installation and the commissioning phases. In the same month, at the Elysée Palace in Paris, the ITER Agreement was signed by seven parties: China, the EU, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the US. The Agreement's ratification in October of the following year marked the start of a new mega-science project — ITER ... that in many respects is the heir of the LHC.

Both machines are based on, for example, a huge superconducting magnet system, large cryogenic plants of unmatched power, a large volume of ultra-high vacuum, a complex electrical powering system, sophisticated interlock and protection systems, high-technology devices and work in highly radioactive environments.

Read more on the CERN website.

Helium 3: How it all began
29 Sep 2014
The University of Wisconsin Fusion Technology Institute, founded in 1971, has been a leader in fusion and plasma physics research, with a broad range of basic science, engineering, and applications programs.

The Institute has done pioneering experimental work using advanced helium-3 fuel to produce fusion energy. Dr. Kulcinski is the Director of the Institute, Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering, and Grainger Professor of Nuclear Engineering. He has led a scientific team which has doggedly pursued, and tirelessly promoted, research into the advanced fusion fuels, such as helium-3, which will create the energy for the future.

Entering the Low Carbon Age
24 Sep 2014
For its fourth edition, the Low Carbon Earth Summit confirmed its role as a major annual event attracting an international audience concerned by—and involved in—the issue of sustainable development. About 1,000 participants from all over the world, two Nobel Laureates, and a hundred of presenters were present from 21 to 23 September in Qingdao, China; from a quantitative point of view the event was clearly successful.

And from a qualitative point of view as well, as the conference convincingly showed that we have entered a new age. Many examples of technological developments were presented that result or will result in a net decrease in carbon emissions.

The diversity of low-carbon initiatives around the world is absolutely impressive. Adaptation and mitigation of climate change are now embedded at all levels at the society (technology, law, education) and in all countries. In Australia, for example, the government has begun approaching groups that will be affected by the rise in ocean level to explore the possible actions. In China, Oxfam is conducting pilot projects in rural areas in order to evaluate the resilience of the food system and the vulnerability of the poorest to climate change. Legislation and law also need to be adapted. Studies conducted in several countries by the Swedish lawyer Peter Lohmander show that forests can be exploited in a sustainable way provided that regulations are modified. Many initiatives have been taken across all countries in educating people and raising public awareness. Hence the diversity of the participant's profiles: there are not many conferences today where you can find at the same table a lawyer, an economist, a farmer, a physicist and an entrepreneur.

Against this backdrop, I presented ITER as a genuine disruptive and innovative technology that is likely to change the course of our civilization.

As the world's most populated country and a key economic actor, China was obviously the focus of many discussions. During the opening session two Nobel Prize winners in economics, Edward Prescott (2004) and Sir Christopher Pissarides (2010), showed that the future of the Chinese "economic miracle" will depend on the government's capacity of reforming the country's economic institutions and significantly deregulating its services industry.

In this respect, said Sir Christopher, China has a historical opportunity "not make the same mistake as many European countries." The 2010 Nobel Prize winner added that he saw "China's opportunities in the globalized world as high technology manufacturing. Its research system is now mature enough to really start innovating."

-Michel Claessens, head of ITER Communication & External Relations
​Second delivery of components to ITER
24 Sep 2014
On 18 September, three trucks arrived from Italy loaded with equipment for ITER's Steady State Electrical Network (SSEN). The high voltage disconnectors and earthing switches were procured by the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), which serves as the SSEN engineering support subcontractor to the US Domestic Agency, and manufactured by the Italian branch of Alstom.

US plans for future of fusion research
23 Sep 2014
​As the international ITER project to develop an experimental nuclear fusion reactor eats into research budgets around the world, an advisory panel to the US Department of Energy recommends mothballing at least one of three major experiments and focusing on research necessary to bring ITER online.

The Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) released its report on 22 September at a meeting in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The document outlines a 10-year plan for US nuclear fusion research for various budget scenarios, the most optimistic of which calls for "modest growth".

Nuclear fusion offers the potential for producing practically limitless energy by smashing heavy atoms of hydrogen into helium inside a burning 100-million-kelvin plasma and capturing the energy released by the reaction — but scientific and engineering challenges remain.

The report says the US should focus research initiatives on the biggest impediments to ITER's donut-like design, called a tokamak — how to control the writhing plasma at the reactor's core, and understanding how it interacts with surrounding material in order to engineer walls that can maintain the reaction.

Read more on Nature web site.

Sandia magnetized fusion technique produces significant results
23 Sep 2014
​Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories' Z machine have produced a significant output of fusion neutrons, using a method fully functioning for only little more than a year. [...]

The experimental work is described in a paper to be published in the Sept. 24 Physical Review Letters online. A theoretical PRL paper to be published on the same date helps explain why the experimental method worked. The combined work demonstrates the viability of the novel approach.
"We are committed to shaking this [fusion] tree until either we get some good apples or a branch falls down and hits us on the head," said Sandia senior manager Dan Sinars. He expects the project, dubbed MagLIF for magnetized liner inertial fusion, will be "a key piece of Sandia's submission for a July 2015 National Nuclear Security Administration review of the national Inertial Confinement Fusion Program."
Inertial confinement fusion creates nanosecond bursts of neutrons, ideal for creating data to plug into supercomputer codes that test the safety, security and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear stockpile. The method could be useful as an energy source down the road if the individual fusion pulses can be sequenced like an automobile's cylinders firing.
 
Read more on Sandia National Laboratories web site.
​Cryostat Workshop ready for equipment
19 Sep 2014
On 8-9 September the final acceptance meeting was held for the Cryostat Workshop. This 5,500-square-metre building will be the theatre for the assembly of the four main cryostat sections from 54 smaller segments manufactured in India.
 
As the contractor chosen by the Indian Domestic Agency for the construction and assembly of the ITER cryostat, Larsen & Toubro Limited is also in charge of the on-site cryostat worksite. The company awarded the construction contract to the French company SPIE Batignolles TPCI, who began work just over a year ago, in June 2013.
 
"Larsen & Toubro (L&T) takes pride in having completed the temporary workshop before the contractual delivery date," a company statement read. "This was possible due to the positive and collaborative efforts by all of the teams involved: SPIE Batignolles TPCI, Danieli (crane contractor), Currie & Brown (engineering), Apave (health and safety protection), ITER India and the ITER Organization. Larsen & Toubro is thankful to all of these teams for their role in achieving this feat."
PPPL provides insight to how magnetic reconnection energizes plasma particles
18 Sep 2014
​The process of magnetic field line reconnection, in which the magnetic field lines in a plasma snap apart and violently reconnect, transforms magnetic field energy into particle energy. Little was known about this phenomenon that is known most prominently in the form of solar flares on the surface of the sun. The subsequent geomagnetic storms on earth have demonstrated how much energy can be released by magnetic reconnection.

In the research conducted on the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX) at PPPL, scientists measured experimentally the amount of magnetic energy that turns into particle energy. They showed that reconnection converts about 50 percent of the magnetic energy in the plasma, with one-third of the conversion heating the electrons and two-thirds accelerating the ions.

The findings also suggested the process by which the energy conversion occurs. According to the researchers, reconnection first propels and energizes the electrons, which creates an electrically charged field that becomes the primary energy source for the ions.

Read more on the FuseNet and News at Princeton websites.

Cosmic hybrid
18 Sep 2014
​A weird type of 'hybrid' star has been discovered nearly 40 years since it was first theorized — but until now has been curiously difficult to find.

In 1975, renowned astrophysicists Kip Thorne, of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif., and Anna Żytkow, of the University of Cambridge, UK, assembled a theory on how a large dying star could swallow its neutron star binary partner, thus becoming a very rare type of stellar hybrid, nicknamed a Thorne-Żytkow object (or TŻO). The neutron star — a dense husk of degenerate matter that was once a massive star long since gone supernova — would spiral into the red supergiant's core, interrupting normal fusion processes.
Read more here. Access the scientific article here
Wendelstein 7-X on track for first plasma in 2015
16 Sep 2014
​After a decade of construction, the Wendelstein 7-X experiment (W7-X) is now its commissioning phase. Work is underway to install plasma-facing components and some of the in-components of the diagnostics.

A first, three-month operation period is planned in 2015.

Find out all the detail of the first plasmas planned in the latest issue of the Wendelstein 7-X newsletter here.

 

ITER's Arnaud Devred receives IEEE award
15 Sep 2014
On 11 August, during the opening session of this year's Applied Superconductivity Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina (US), ITER's Arnaud Devred received the IEEE award "for continuing and significant contributions in the field of applied superconductivity."

The prestigious prize delivered by the IEEE Council on Applied Superconductivity was awarded for his "many and significant contributions to the field of large scale applications." 
 
"I am indebted to many people, who have inspired me and made me the person I am today," said the head of the ITER Superconductor Systems & Auxiliaries Section in his acceptance speech. "One of my greatest privileges—and rewards—is that throughout my carrier I have been able to meet and work with great people. First in Europe, then in the US and Japan, and now from all around the world. Therefore, I would like to share this award with my numerous collaborators in China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States, and, in these times of heightened political tensions, it is my wish that we can keep working together in the same open and peaceful manner—our little contribution to making the world a better place to be."
Latest ITER Games draw close to 250 competitors
15 Sep 2014
Last Saturday 13 September, the fourth edition of the ITER Games attracted a crowd of close to 250 competitors and their supporters for an all-day sports event including football and tennis competitions, a cross-country run, a kayak race and a petanque tournament. For the participants—people working for the ITER Project, club members from the local sports associations, and their families—this was another opportunity to meet, compete and share ... all ways to strengthen ties between ITER and its environment. (Photo AIF-AP)

FuseNet PhD Event in November
15 Sep 2014
This year's FuseNet PhD Event will take place on 18—20 November in Lisbon, Portugal.

Organized by the University of Lisbon under the umbrella of the FuseNet Association and with the financial support of EUROfusion, the PhD Event brings together PhD students working in the field of fusion science and engineering. The aim of the event is to enable students to disseminate their research, develop a network of contacts and learn from each other's experiences.

The Event is open to all PhD students involved with research in nuclear fusion research and who are registered at a European university or a FuseNet member university.

The deadline for applications is 15 October 2014 (financial support is available). More information on the event and the application procedure can be found on the FuseNet website
Read the latest news from the IPFN fusion institute in Portugal
11 Sep 2014
The latest newsletter from the IPFN Institute in Portugal (Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear) is available here.

World's largest metals research consortium to be established with EUR 1bn funding
11 Sep 2014
​The world's largest research consortium in the field of metals research and manufacturing is to be created by European industry in the form of Metallurgy Europe. The R&D program has recently been selected as a new Eureka Cluster and will bring together over 170 companies and laboratories from across 20 countries. Funding for the project has been stated as EUR 1 billion over seven years.

The European Powder Metallurgy Association and a number of other European organizations such as the European Space Agency (ESA), European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, the Institut Laue-Langevin and the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy are reported to be providing their expertise and innovation to this initiative.

Read more on the Powder Metallurgy Review website.

Hutch Neilson in Germany to pave way for US participation in Wendelstein 7-X
10 Sep 2014
​Hutch Neilson, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory's (PPPL's) head of Advanced Projects, is saying "auf wiedersehen" to the lab for the next nine months as he travels to Greifswald, Germany, where he will be paving the way for future US researchers to participate on the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) program as the experiment begins preparing for operations next year.

David Gates, a principal research physicist and the stellarator physics leader at PPPL, will be serving as Interim Head of Advanced Projects in Neilson's absence.

Neilson's new position comes after the US Department of Energy and the European Atomic Energy Commission signed an agreement in June establishing a long-term partnership with the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) and PPPL, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. The agreement names PPPL as the lead institute for the US collaboration on the W7-X.

Read more on the PPPL website.
Monster Machines: What the future of nuclear fusion research looked like in 1962
09 Sep 2014
​At the onset of the atomic age, governments on both sides of the iron curtain sought to harness the power of nuclear fusion. Researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in New Jersey stood at the forefront of the American effort when, in 1953, they began using Stellarators — one of the earliest controlled fusion systems.

Early fusion research in the western world nearly immediately split into two halves after the end of WWII, with one subset of researchers observing super-compressed fusion materials at very short timescales, the others — including Dr. Lyman Spitzer, chair of the Department of Astronomy at Princeton University — observing these materials at a lower compression for longer times. Spitzer's invention served this purpose wonderfully. The Stellarator that Spitzer invented in 1950 is designed to hold superheated, electrically-charged plasma — a most vital and basic component of nuclear fusion research — within a designated field using electromagnetic currents.
Read more on the Gizmodo web site.

Ed Moses appointed president of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization
04 Sep 2014
​Ed Moses, a longtime scientific leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has been appointed by the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO) as president of their organization, effective 2 October 2014.

"Ed is ideally positioned and qualified for this scientific leadership role," Goldstein said. "He is an expert in laser science, optical systems, technology development, systems engineering and project leadership and management. Ed has played key roles in major LLNL programs over the last 35 years including Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation, Peregrine, the National Ignition Facility and the National Ignition Campaign."

"He also was responsible for building several major science and DOD work-for-other programs," Goldstein said. "Ed is an international leader in fusion energy science and applications. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and member of many other professional societies, and a winner of a broad spectrum of prestigious awards."

Underground experiment confirms what powers the sun
03 Sep 2014
​Scientists have long believed that the power of the sun comes largely from the fusion of protons into helium, but now they can finally prove it. An international team of researchers using a detector buried deep below the mountains of central Italy has detected neutrinos—ghostly particles that interact only very reluctantly with matter—streaming from the heart of the sun. Other solar neutrinos have been detected before, but these particular ones come from the key proton-proton fusion reaction that is the first part of a chain of reactions that provides 99% of the sun's power.

The results also show that the sun is a remarkably steady power source. Neutrinos take only 8 minutes to get from the sun's core to Earth, so the rate of neutrino production that the team detected reflects the amount of heat the sun is producing today. It just so happens that this is the same as the amount of energy now being radiated from the sun's surface, even though those photons have taken 100,000 years to work their way from the core to the surface. Hence, the sun's energy production hasn't changed in 100 millennia. "This is direct proof of the stability of the sun over the past 100,000 years or so," says team member Andrea Pocar of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
 
Read more on Science website
NSTX fusion reactor at Princeton will be operational again after $94 M upgrade
03 Sep 2014
​Tucked away from major roadways and nestled amid more than 80 acres of forest sits a massive warehouse-like building where inside, a device that can produce temperatures hotter than the sun has sat cold and quiet for more than two years.

But the wait is almost over for the nuclear fusion reactor to get back up and running at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

"We're very excited and we're all anxious to turn that machine back on," said Adam Cohen, deputy director for operations at PPPL.

The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) has been shut down since 2012 as it underwent a $94 million upgrade that will make it what officials say will be the most powerful fusion facility of its kind in the world. It is expected to be ready for operations in late winter or early spring, Cohen said.

[...]

The upgrade (NSTX-U) will essentially double the power of the reactor by increasing the heat, electrical current and magnetic field. A second [device] that helps heat the plasma was added, and the center magnet, which resembles the core of an apple, was rebuilt to create a stronger magnetic field.

"We may reach several hundred million degrees Celsius in the new machine," said Masa Ono, a research physicist and head of the NSTX department.

Access the full story, image gallery and video interview at nj.com.
ITER Director-General gets update on Broader Approach
31 Aug 2014
​In Rokkasho, on the eastern coastline of Japan, Europe and Japan are jointly carrying out advanced R&D activities in support of ITER and for successful development of the phases after ITER. Termed the "Broader Approach," these efforts have been underway since 2007.

In early August, the Director-General of the ITER Organization, Osamu Motojima, and ITER Council Secretary, Sachiko Ishizaka, visited Rokkasho for an update on Broader Approach activities and to share information about progress at ITER.

 The activities of the Broader Approach are essential for the phases after ITER in the world fusion program. One project, IFMIF/EVEDA, is validating the concept for a fusion-relevant neutron source based on Li(d,xn) reactions and will permit the rapid construction of such a facility within cost and schedule less than a decade from the time that a decision is taken. Another—IFERC—not only holds a supercomputer that dedicated to plasma simulations for the world fusion community (Helios), but is also implementing research efforts towards a (post-ITER) DEMO reactor.

 After visiting the facilities—including the injector of LIPAc, the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) that is presently under installation and commissioning—the visitors from ITER were able to appreciate the sound advancements and robust health of the Broader Approach projects.

 Photo caption: After meeting the management of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, ITER Director-General Motojima (second from left) gave a seminar to Broader Approach staff on the evolution of ITER. Juan Knaster, Project Leader of IFMIF/EVEDA (far left) and Noriyoshi Nakajima (not pictured), Project Leader of IFERC, explained the status of their respective projects and plans for the future. Council Secretary Sachiko Ishizaka is pictured fifth from right. Kenkichi Ushigusa, Director-General of Rokkasho Fusion Institute (JAEA) is pictured third from right.

Fusion reactor at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab will be operational again after $94 M upgrade
29 Aug 2014
 

Princeton - Tucked away from major roadways and nestled amid more than 80 acres of forest sits a massive warehouse-like building where inside, a device that can produce temperatures hotter than the sun has sat cold and quiet for more than two years.
But the wait is almost over for the nuclear fusion reactor to get back up and running at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
"We're very excited and we're all anxious to turn that machine back on," said Adam Cohen, deputy director for operations at PPPL.

The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) has been shut down since 2012 as it underwent a $94 million upgrade that will make it what officials say will be the most powerful fusion facility of its kind in the world. It is expected to be ready for operations in late winter or early spring, Cohen said.

Read more on the NJ.com website.
ITER components en route from New York
28 Aug 2014
Four crates containing parts of an ITER electrical transformer (high voltage surge arresters) left the port of New York on 5 August; delivery to the ITER site in France is expected late September. The components were manufactured by ABB in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania.

Figuring out the way to make really clean energy
24 Aug 2014
​FOR years, scientists just down the road from Oxford have been quietly working at the forefront of a project that could change the world.

But fusion power is the best invention you have probably never heard of.
That may sound like a bold claim, but Prof Steve Cowley, chief executive officer of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, is convinced that it is the only solution to a fast-approacing world energy crisis.
He has been working at the science centre since 2008, but the project — the Joint European Torus (JET) — has been under way since 1982. Its aim: to create the conditions of a star on the Earth, producing clean, cheap energy for us to power our televisions, kettles and lightbulbs.
Read more on the Oxford Mail website.
Bridging the gap to IFMIF
24 Aug 2014
​Culham Center for Fusion Energy, in a consortium with UK universities and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, is developing a concept for a large neutron source to test materials for future fusion power plants including the proposed prototype, DEMO, that will follow the ITER project.

If approved, the FAFNIR project would give the designers of DEMO crucial data on materials with which to build the machine. It would also serve as a bridge to the planned International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF), which is expected to play a similar role for the first generation of commercial fusion reactors.
Fusion scientists and engineers are increasingly focusing on materials research as attention turns to designs for reactors that will put power on the electricity grid. The extremely fast neutrons produced by fusion reactions in tokamaks carry an energy of 14 million electron volts (MeV) — about 70 times more than photons in hospital x-ray equipment — and pose a threat to the tokamak's structures. The neutrons cause damage within the structure of the material which leads to swelling through the creation of voids. Effects such as embrittlement and hardening of the metal caused by accumulation of helium and hydrogen gases produced by transmutation (transformation of one element into another) mean that special materials must be developed that can stay the course throughout the reactor's lifespan. As a result of transmutations caused by the neutrons, radioactive elements are produced within the tokamak components, so choosing materials that will shed their radioactivity quickly is another priority for safe decommissioning.
 
Read more on CCFE web site.
Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX)'s opening statement at the Subcommittee on Energy
21 Jul 2014
​Last week the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology's Subcommittee on Energy held a hearing to discuss the progress and future of the ITER international fusion project.

When Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) delivered her opening statement, she affirmed her confidence in Nuclear Fusion. "Nuclear Fusion has the potential to provide the world with clean safe and practically inexhaustible source of energy. Producing reliable electric power from fusion would undoubtedly serve as one of the biggest  and most important scientific achievements on the history of mankind''.

She also confirmed her support in the ITER Project: ''That is why I am so supportive of a strong research program that can help us overcome the remaining scientific and engineering challenges for this potential to become a reality. The ITER project is the next and largest step towards this goal''.

Listen to this statement here.

Scientists recreate core conditions on Jupiter, Saturn using lasers
21 Jul 2014
​Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) found a way to compress a diamond, mimicking conditions in the cores of planets like Jupiter and Saturn.

Working alongside researchers from the Princeton University and University of California, Berkeley, LLNL scientists used the world's largest laser known as the U.S. National Ignition Facility (NIF) to achieve what they set out to do. Actually, it was 176 lasers coming together as one to compress a diamond to 50 million times the atmospheric pressure of the Earth or 14 times of the planet's core. The air above you is equivalent to one atmosphere. The NIF has a total of 192 lasers.

Diamonds are chosen for the experiment because these are made from carbon and carbon is the fourth most abundant of the elements in the universe. They are the hardest material known to man but it took no more than 10 billionths of a second to vaporize a piece with the help of the NIF. Despite the lack of an end-product that can be further observed, the experiment is helpful because it has shown that it is possible to study the behavior of planets rich in carbon, as well as stars and exoplanets beyond the Milky Way.

"The experimental techniques developed here provide a new capability to experimentally reproduce pressure-temperature conditions deep in planetary interiors," said LLNL physicist and lead author for the study, Ray Smith.

Read more on Techtimes ​website. 

Charity begins at CERN
17 Jul 2014
​There is a mantra in the fund-raising world: big donors like to support big ideas. And ideas do not come much larger than at CERN, Europe's particle-physics laboratory near Geneva in Switzerland. Now the organization — which uses its particle smasher to probe the fundamental structure of the Universe — has registered a charitable foundation to raise funds for its educational, technology-transfer and arts activities.

CERN is not the only big institution to go after donations to fund projects that fall outside the core research remit. The trend is on the rise among large European research organizations. The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, is shifting its fund-raising focus from industry sponsorship to private donations. And ITER, the international nuclear-fusion experiment being built in Cadarache, France, is devising a way to deal with the offers of donations that it already receives. What nobody yet knows is the fruit these efforts will bear — whether individuals really want to donate heftily to scientific charities that are not focused on medical solutions.

For CERN, there is no better time to form a charitable foundation, says Matteo Castoldi, head of its development office. CERN's Large Hadron Collider, and the discovery of the Higgs boson, has "captured the public imagination" as much as the Apollo missions did in the 1960s, he says. The organization is already taking advantage of this, "but there is much more we could do, and that's where the foundation comes in".
(...)

CERN director-general Rolf-Dieter Heuer stresses that such funding will not replace the institute's core budget, paid for by member states. Instead, the proceeds are aimed at activities that this funding cannot stretch to: school projects, the development of medical spin-offs such as proton therapy (the use of proton beams to kill cancer cells), and meeting the huge demand for general-interest and science-related visits. But if a donor has an explicit desire for their gift to go towards research, CERN would consider this, adds Heuer.​

Read the full article on the Nature website.

Latest issue of Korea's "Fusion Now"
16 Jul 2014
​The National Fusion Research Institute of Korea has just published the latest issue of their magazine Fusion Now, with a long article on the ITER International Business Forum that brought together 220 industrial participants in Seoul on 2-4 July.

New video on toroidal field coil manufacturing
16 Jul 2014
A new video released this month by the European Domestic Agency takes us to the heart of the toroidal field coil manufacturing process. At the ASG Superconductor facility in La Spezia, Italy, a prototype double pancake—the building block of the seven-layer toroidal field coils—has now been through all of the stages of manufacturing, from winding to laser welding. The camera guides us all along the process, from station to station, with close up shots of the technologies involved.
 
You can view the video here or visit the European Domestic Agency website for more information.
Change at the helm of the JT-60 Super Advanced tokamak project
14 Jul 2014
​On 1 July 2014 Hiroshi Shirai took over from Shinichi Ishida as project leader of the Satellite Tokamak Programme project in Japan—JT-60SA. 

As a project conducted under the Broader Approach Agreement between Europe and Japan, the Satellite Tokamak Programme is upgrading the JT-60U tokamak in Naka, Japan to the advanced superconducting tokamak JT-60SA, re-employing the site buildings, auxiliaries, neutral beams, and some power supplies to support the exploitation of ITER and to promote research and development towards the next-stage device, DEMO.

Hiroshi Shirai was the group leader of the ITER Project Promotion Group in the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) Tokyo office from 2007 to March 2014. In 2012 and 2013 he was the chairman of the ITER Council Preparatory Working Group (CPWG) and also took on the role of Broader Approach Steering Committee Secretariat from June 2007 to October 2011.

Trained as a theoretical plasma physicist, he has been away from Naka for more than ten years. "Some aspects of R&D activities have changed significantly during this period: JT-60 was shut down and dismantled, and then the JT-60SA project started up quickly and is now in the assembly phase. I will have to catch up with the ongoing activities here in a short time. Thanks to the assistance of the Project Team members I am accommodating myself to the new work environment. Coordinating to keep the schedule of this project is quite a demanding task, but the Project Team and I are dedicated to fulfilling our responsibilities."

Shinichi Ishida, JT-60SA project leader since 2007, recalled on his departure the problems of the early years "The project had developed significant problems in terms of cost, schedule, performance and management due to very limited human resources. But we achieved a consensus that only a clear and common mission could hold an organization together as a single team and enable it to produce results." During his time in office the project placed almost all the procurement arrangements of JT-60SA. Mr Ishida will continue to support the project from his new role at the JAEA Naka site in coordination for the management of fusion R&D, including the ITER Project and Broader Approach activities.

For more information, please see the JT-60SA newsletter.

ITER discussed at US House of Representatives subcommitee
14 Jul 2014


On Friday 11 July, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology's Subcommittee on Energy held a hearing to discuss the progress and future of the ITER international fusion project. The US joined the European Union (EU), India, Japan, China, Korea, and Russia to form the ITER Organization, with each country providing resources, personnel, and expertise to move the project forward.
Ranking Member Eric Swalwell (D-CA) of the Energy Subcommittee said in his opening statement, "Given the critical importance of ITER to determining the viability of fusion as a clean energy source, and the major contributions of US researchers to advancing the science and engineering of the field to this point, I maintain strong support for this project along with the other key components of the broader US-based fusion research program. However, this does not mean we can support an unconditional blank check. The US must maintain vigorous oversight and use every means available with our international partners to contain cost and schedule, all while keeping an unwavering focus on achieving the project's incredibly important goals for our and the world's energy future."
Read more here.
Australian Plasma Fusion Research Facility launched
14 Jul 2014
​The search for star power — fusion — has received a major boost with the launch of the Australian Plasma Fusion Research Facility (APFRF) at The Australian National University.

The facility includes Australia's largest fusion experiment, the newly upgraded H1, which will now be able to heat fusion experiments to temperatures hotter than the core of the sun.

The facility also includes a new machine, MagPIE, which will accelerate research into extreme materials to be used in future experiments involving even higher temperatures and radiation levels.

Senator Zed Seselja pressed the button to initiate a 30,000 degrees Celsius fusion experiment in H1 to conclude the launch. "This facility and its fine team have a reputation for world-class innovation and research excellence," Senator Seselja said.

[...]

"ITER's design hinges on experiments being carried out in experiments around the world, such as the Plasma Fusion Research Facility at ANU," said the Director General of ITER, Osamu Motojima.

Dr Adi Paterson, CEO of ANSTO, said the choice of materials for use in ITER is an active research area, to which MagPIE is already contributing, in collaboration with ANSTO (Australia's national nuclear research and development organisation), which part funded the project.

"Power plant fusion plasmas present an extreme materials challenge. This facility helps us to test whether prototype new materials can withstand the heat flux damage inflicted by a fusion plasma," Dr Paterson said.

At the same event a five-year plan for fusion research was launched laying out pathways to Australian ITER involvement and enhancements to national experimental fusion science capabilities.

The upgrade to H1 was made possible through a Commonwealth investment of $7.9 million from the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme (NCRIS) and associated programs.

Read more about ANU and its Plasma Fusion Research Facility here.

Russia concludes signatures on two ITER diagnostics
14 Jul 2014
​Two additional Complementary Diagnostic Procurement Arrangements were concluded in Russia on 10 July for the delivery of diagnostic systems to ITER. Russian Domestic Agency head Anatoly Krasilnikov signed the documents in the presence of ITER Diagnostics Division head Michael Walsh, who told the Russian staff members and supplier representatives present that "without diagnostics we won't see anything in ITER. Diagnostics are the machine's eyes and ears." 

In the scope of its commitments to ITER, Russia will manufacture 9 out of the 45 planned diagnostic systems. The latest signatures covered Edge Charge Exchange Recombination Spectroscopy and the H-Alpha diagnostic—both highly sophisticated technical devices designed for the measurement of various plasma parameters. 

--Alex Petrov, ITER Russia
EUR 283 million contract to operate JET
09 Jul 2014
​A major EUR 283 million contract has been signed between the European Commission and the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) that enables CCFE to continue to operate JETfor use by the EUROfusion consortium of European fusion research laboratoriesuntil the end of 2018.

CCFE has been operating JET, Europe's largest fusion energy experiment, for fusion scientists around the continent since 2000. But the new agreement represents the largest-ever single contract to be awarded to CCFE and gives Culham and the European fusion program unprecedented security of funding for five years. This enables future experimental programs and further upgrades to JET to be planned with confidence and secures its position as a science and engineering test bed for its international successor ITER, under construction in France.

CCFE Director Steve Cowley is delighted with the agreement on the contract: "This is great news for the highly-skilled CCFE staff who work on JET and for the European fusion program. We are determined to make the most of this investment and push JET towards ever-improving performance in the years to come."
-- Nick Holloway

Source: Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE)
See also "JET operation secured until 2018" on the EFDA/JET website.
 
ITER Progress in Pictures
09 Jul 2014
Aerial views of the ITER platform, close-ups of the steel reinforcement in the Tokamak Seismic Pit, reportage-like images of pouring operations and component manufacturing... nothing illustrates the progress of the ITER Project better than photographs.

 

These pictures—some which have appeared in the publications ITER Newsline and ITER Mag and others that you'll be discovering for the first time—have been assembled in a 45-page photo book titled ITER, Progress in Pictures.

 

This new ITER communication tool will be updated at least once a year. A pdf version is available here or in the Miscellaneous section of the ITER website's Publication Centre.

​Russian toroidal field conductor deliveries reach half-way point
07 Jul 2014
Three toroidal field conductor lengths left the Kurchatov Institute near Moscow, Russia for the ASG Superconductor plant in La Spezia, Italy on Friday 4 July. This delivery marks the halfway point in the shipment of Russian toroidal field conductor production lengths to the European winding facility.

Following this latest shipment (two 760-metre unit lengths and one 415-metre unit length), 14 unit lengths of toroidal field conductor remain to be delivered under the terms of the Procurement Arrangement signed between the ITER Organization and ITER Russia.
July issue of F4E news
04 Jul 2014
​The latest issue of the European Domestic Agency's newsletter, F4ENews,  has just been released. You can consult it here.

 

ITER Business Forum opens in Seoul
03 Jul 2014
The ITER Business Forum opened on 2 July in Seoul attended by 220 representatives of 122 companies from the seven member states of the ITER project.

In his video address (pictured) ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima stressed the "essential part" that industry plays in the ITER Project. "And by 'industry' I mean all industry," he said, "not only the large international companies that are familiar with big projects, but also the small and medium-sized firms that drive economic growth and technological innovation in most countries today."

The ITER Business Forum continues until 4 July, with thematic sessions on the different ITER components and plant systems and presentations from industry.

 

ITER worksite: 2014 milestones
02 Jul 2014
​A number of building projects will be kicking off on the ITER site in the months to come. 

In this video, Laurent Schmieder, Site, Buildings and Power Supplies Project Manager for the European Domestic Agency, explains the different types of works that are planned, and how the construction of the Tokamak Complex and a number of surrounding buildings will get underway simultaneously, and the challenge of organizing such a busy worksite.

Watch the video here ​on the F4E website. 

Fusion: energy of the future? (live stream)
01 Jul 2014
After 60 years of fusion research, are we any closer?

This was the question asked during a 90-minute episode of the US science series "NEXT: People | Science | Tomorrow" (KPCC Southern California Public Radio) that aired on 30 June.

Guests William W. Heidbrink, professor of physics and astronomy in the School of Physical Sciences at the University of California, Irvine; John Parmentola, senior vice president of General Atomics' Energy and Advanced Concepts Group; and Ned R. Sauthoff, director of the US ITER Project Office, Oak Ridge National Laboratory joined host Mat Kaplan for a tour of fusion science, the ITER Project and the outlook for fusion energy.
 
You can watch the live stream here.
"Very helpful for all of humanity"
26 Jun 2014
The clouds cleared up in time to welcome three distinguished members of the South Korea's National Assembly on 25 June 2014. Hae Ja Park, Sye-kyun Chung, and Young Kyo Seo were accompanied by the head of the Korean Domestic Agency for ITER, Kijung Jung. They were warmly welcomed by ITER Director-General Motojima who presented the current status of the ITER Project before they headed out onto the construction site for a visit.

At the end of the visit, Sye-kyun Chung remarked how impressive the project is and how, "in the long term, this project will be very helpful for all of humanity."

Report urges Alberta to prepare for fusion energy
26 Jun 2014
​Learning to harness fusion in a controlled way — recreating the sun on earth, as a clean source of energy — is the objective of national programs in Asia, Europe and the USA. And the race is heating up, with several quite promising options.
 
According to Professor Allan Offenberger "A sustained fusion burn is no longer an academic dream but will be realized in the near future."
 
Dr. Offenberger, on behalf of the Alberta Council of Technologies Society (ABCtech), led an assessment team on visits to the major programs around the world last year. As part of the assessment, the Society also entertained Alberta energy leaders in workshops in Calgary and Edmonton and invited international fusion researchers to report on progress at a Forum co-hosted with Alberta Energy at Alberta Innovates last fall.

Included in the Report — and found favourable — was an assessment of the merit of employing fusion energy in oil sands extraction. "Fusion ignition generates heat that would reduce the need for vast quantities of natural gas in oil sands extraction," notes Dr. Robert Fedosejevs, from the Engineering Faculty at the University of Alberta, who also participated on the assessment team.

Read more on Troy Media website.
V. Putin talks with Kurchatov's director M. Kovalchuk
25 Jun 2014
​Russia's President Vladimir Putin met with Director of the National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute Mikhail Kovalchuk.

Mr Kovalchuk briefed the President about the results of implementing a state program for developing the Kurchatov Institute.
 
PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Mr Kovalchuk, four years ago, you proposed a development program for the Kurchatov Institute. The Kurchatov Institute is one of the leading research institutions working in nuclear physics, if not the leading institution. And you have received six billion each year with the goal of development?
 
DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL RESEARCH CENTRE KURCHATOV INSTITUTE MIKHAIL KOVALCHUK: Yes, that was the amount.
 
VLADIMIR PUTIN: I know that the program is about to conclude, and I would like to hear about the results we have reached. Moreover, I know you are currently working on the next program.
 
MIKHAIL KOVALCHUK: Mr President, I would like to report to you about the most significant results reached while implementing the program launched on your initiative and the most important results that are significant for our nation's economy.
 
Read the whole conversation transcription on the Foreign Affairs website.
Operate a Tokamak from the comfort of your couch
24 Jun 2014
Ever been curious about how a Tokamak works? Or how it creates energy? Thanks to the new app Operation Tokamak from EFDA (available in IOS and Android), you can operate a Tokamak from the comfort of your own couch. Chose your level, slowly heat the plasma, and create energy—shooting all the while at magnetic islands in order to keep the plasma going. Though the app has been simplified from a working Tokamak, you can still get a good sense of the magnitiude of a real fusion reactor.

And don't forget to share your scores!

 More information on EDFA website.
New team at Culham Innovation Centre
24 Jun 2014
​Oxford Innovation is pleased to announce a new team at Culham Innovation Centre with the appointment of Sandie Alcock as centre manager and David Roberts as assistant centre manager.

Following the announcement of the City Deal earlier this year which will see significant investment in Culham and the surrounding area, the team have been tasked with increasing the centre's occupancy levels by providing science and technology start-ups and SMEs with flexible office solutions to help them grow.

Centre manager, Sandie Alcock, joins Oxford Innovation from Oxford Community School with a strong background in operations management gained in a range of public sector roles working closely with schools, local councils and the community.

(...)

Since being in her role, Ms Alcock has already made her first appointment with David Roberts as assistant centre manager. Mr Roberts was previously Duty Manager at Eynsham Hall and is due to graduate from Cardiff University with a law degree later this year.

(...)

Culham Innovation Centre is already home to a number of high profile and interesting organisations including Reaction Engines Ltd who has made a major breakthrough in aerospace energy that is now allowing the development of engines that will propel aircrafts of up to five times the speed of sound.

Read the Culham Innovation Centre's press release here​

Europe's E-ELT blast marks first step in new science mega-project
23 Jun 2014


Construction of the European Extremely Large Telescope has officially begun in the Atacama desert in Chile, marking the first step in a true mega-project that could offer us answers to some of the most profound questions in science.

The event this week, the blasting of the top of Cerro Armazones — 3,000 metres high until Thursday, a few less now — was far less dramatic than many of the onlookers at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal facility 25 kilometres away had hoped for, but it was a significant first step in taking the E-ELT from the drawing board to reality.

The function of the blast was to loosen many thousands of tons of rock from the summit in order for the earth movers to begin clearing a flat, circular area for the foundations of the telescope. This really is just the first small step in a massively ambitious project to build the E-ELT that will take at least a decade to finish.

The science case for the E-ELT is quite easy to make, even to non-astronomers. While some of the great telescopes now in space and on the ground are designed to observe technical subjects such as the geometry of galaxies or the formation of stars, the E-ELT pitches itself as the telescope that will allow us to directly look at other planets around other stars.

The E-ELT science team reckon they have a good chance of being the first to directly observe little blue dots like Earth, if they exist.

Read more on Euronews website.  
Soccer and JET: conflicting demands...
20 Jun 2014
​The World Cup is an opportunity to take a look at how popular football games affect JET's experimental schedule: JET's peak power demand is over one percent of the UK supply — albeit for very short periods — so the supply from the grid is limited to 575 megawatts, and JET's two flywheels are used to top up if necessary. But at some times, JET is not allowed to take any power from the grid at all.

This happens when there are other major energy consuming events — such as halftime in a major football final, or in the ad-breaks in a popular TV show — times at which millions of people will switch on the kettle or go to the toilet, which creates an electrical load on the water pumping system. In fact JET power supply engineers are in regular contact with the grid, who advise every day the times at which pulses should be avoided — for example the fifteen to twenty minutes around sunset when lots of people turn on their lights.

The engineers also monitor the frequency of the electricity supplied by the grid throughout the day: if the frequency falls much below the regulation 50 Hz they know the grid is under load and so they will recommend to the Engineer In Charge that pulses not be run.

Read more on EFDA website.

Nine years into one: the time-lapse video of Wendelstein 7-X assembly
19 Jun 2014
In​ this three-minute time-lapse video, nine years of Wendelstein 7-X assembly (2005 to 2014) are condensed into three-minutes. The fusion device at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, in Germany, comprises five large and almost identical modules that were pre-installed and then assembled in a circle in the experimentation hall. Pump-down of the machine began in May.

Read more about Wendelstein 7-X on the IPP website.
Important progress for JT-60SA
19 Jun 2014
​See the progress of the JT-60SA project — one of the three projects being developed under the Broader Approach Agreement — in this new clip filmed on-site in Naka, Japan. The clip shows that the six year assembly of JT-60SA is moving forward: the heart of the machine, the vacuum vessel, is now being built.

Implemented by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and the European Domestic Agency for ITER, F4E, the advanced superconducting JT-60SA (super advanced) tokamak will be used to quickly identify how to optimize plasma performance for ITER and will study advanced modes of plasma operation suitable for DEMO. A first plasma is foreseen for March 2019.

You can watch the video here or read the news released on F4E's Media Corner.  

ITER catalyzes the development of superconducting technology in Russia
12 Jun 2014
​The ITER Project was represented at a recent roundtable in Russia that reunited the State Duma (the lower chamber of the Russian Parliament), the Public Chamber, the state corporation Rosatom, the Kurchatov Institute, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Federal Energy Service Company FSUE, and leading specialists from the fields of superconductivity and energy.

Organized on 6 June 2014 to address the current status and development prospects of applied heavy-current superconductivity in Russia, the forum aimed to create a common understanding of the potential and the challenges of the field.

The ITER Project was represented by the director of ITER Russia, Anatoly Krasilnikov, who stressed that participation in the project has catalyzed the development of superconducting technology in Russia. A superconducting strand production line was created from scratch at the Chepetsky Mechanical Plant (Glazov, Udmurt Republic) and - thanks to the cooperation between some of the country's leading industries - Russian superconductor for ITER matches the highest world standards.

The following Russian institutes and industries are collaborating to fulfil Russia's procurement to ITER: the Chepetsky Mechanical Plant (strand manufacturing); the Bochvar Institute (strand verification); JSC VNIIKP (cabling); Institute for High Energy Physics (jacketing); and the Kurchatov Institute (global leak test and the mechanical testing of jacketing material). All deliveries of Russian conductor lengths for ITER's toroidal field and poloidal field magnet systems should be completed in 2015.

- Alex Petrov, ITER Russia

Russian documentary on ITER wins prize
10 Jun 2014
​A 25-minute documentary in English on the ITER Project produced by Technology Update (Russia Today) won the bronze world medal at an international film festival in New York City this spring.

Produced back in October 2013, "Way to New Energy" traces the origins of ITER, fusion and the tokamak, taking the viewer to Moscow, Marseille, and Saint Paul-lez-Durance, France as the story unfolds.

You can watch or download the documentary from the website of New York Festivals - 2014 World's Best TV & Films.

Vitali Dmitrievich Shafranov (1929-2014)
10 Jun 2014
​Vitali Dmitrievich Shafranov passed away on 9 June 2014 in Moscow.

V.D. Shafranov was an outstanding physicist, world-recognized leader in the theory of confinement, equilibrium and stability of toroidal magnetic systems, and one of the principal founders of modern plasma physics and magnetic fusion  research.
 
During the Second World War he worked with his father on road construction and received his first government award in 1943 at the age of 14. He graduated school with a gold medal in 1946. After graduation from Moscow state university in 1951 he started his scientific career at LIPAN (part of the future Kurchatov Institute) in the department of Academician Mikhail Leontovich. He published his first paper on the stability of soft wire in parallel magnetic field together with M. Leontovich in 1952.
 
Three of his most important pioneering results are:
 
1) An equation describing plasma equilibrium in axisymmetric magnetic field (Shafranov-Grad, 1956)    
2) An equation for the Shafranov shift of magnetic surfaces with respect to tokamak magnetic axis
3) Shafranov-Kruscal criterium of plasma stability with respect to helical kink modes (1953)
 
Beginning 1981 he was the member-correspondent of the USSR Academy of Science and in 1997 he became an Academician of the Russian Academy of Science.
 
Academician V. D. Shafranov is the author of more than 200 scientific publications. For over 20 years he was the head of the Plasma Theory Department at the Kurchatov Institute. He was also chief editor of Plasma Physics Reports and editor of the Review of Plasma Physics for over 25 years.
 
His colleagues remember his modesty to colleagues and the great attention he paid to their every concern.
 
 

Vitali Dmitrievich Shafranov
01.12.1929 — 09.06.2014

 
Fusion energy explained
10 Jun 2014
​Fusion energy could change the planet. But what is it and why don't we have it?

Physicists Andrew Zwicker, Arturo Dominguez and Stefan Gerhardt explain how fusion energy could be a gamechanger for the world's energy problems.

You can either play the video to learn about fusion, or play with the simulations to make fusion! 

Click here to watch this eight-minute video produced in partnership with the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

MIT at center of political power play
09 Jun 2014
CAMBRIDGE — Senator Elizabeth Warren placed her hand atop a large red button and pressed firmly, restarting a nuclear experiment that MIT believes could help save the planet — but which the Obama administration considered superfluous and tried to kill year after year.

More than 100 scientists, engineers, and technicians — most of whom had, until recently, been under layoff notices — had gathered on campus that cold February day, their eyes glued to the three projection screens hanging from the front of the control room.

Then as superhot plasma inside the fusion reactor next door reached its metal walls, a flash of light appeared on one of the screens. The grand energy experiment had throbbed back to life.

Read more on the Boston Globe website.
Selecting material and technology for the port plug gaskets
04 Jun 2014
​On the way to designing and constructing the ITER Port Plug Test Facility, the ongoing gasket test campaign at the Russian company Cryogenmash marks an important milestone.

Click here to view the video produced by ITER Russia.
Register now for the J-PARC Science Symposium in Japan
03 Jun 2014
The 2nd International Symposium on Science at J-PARC will be held from 12 to 15 July 2014 in Tsukuba (Ibaraki) Japan.

Hosted by the J-PARC Center (High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, KEK, and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, JAEA), the symposium will cover the wide range of science programs at J-PARC including accelerator physics, particle and nuclear physics, and materials and life sciences.

​Early bird registration is open through 16 June on the J-PARC 2014 website.
BBC World Service Discovery broadcasts a documentary on ITER
02 Jun 2014
​ITER is the most complex experiment ever attempted on this planet. Its aim, to demonstrate that nuclear fusion, the power of the Sun, can give us pollution free energy that we can use for millions of years. But at the moment, it's still largely a vast building site in the Haut Provence of southern France ...

Roland Pease has been to Cadarache to see how work is progressing, and to hear of the hopes of the scientists who have dedicated their working lives to the dream.

Listen to the 30-minute documentary from the BBC World Service program Discovery here.

A shorter version of the documentary was also broadcast on the BBC World Service program The Science Hour (listen here at 36:20).

 

Sustainable nuclear energy for a new generation
02 Jun 2014


Scientist puts forward a sustainable energy plan where nuclear fuel is created using magnetic or laser fusion.
News accounts are coming in daily confirming that the reliance on fossil fuels for energy is adversely affecting the world we live in: the National Climate Assessment detailed how climate change is creating havoc with our planet today and lists the burning of fossil fuels as the predominate cause; two teams of scientists just reported the irreversible glacial collapse of an Antarctic ice sheet as a result of warming ocean temperatures; and California's record drought and heat are producing wildfires and driving up food prices. It is evident that we must invest in alternative methods of energy production as soon as possible.
Nuclear energy produces carbon free energy, and is responsible for 13% of the world's electricity today, but fission-based reactors present environmental hazards and utilize less than 1% of the fuel. Nuclear fusion has held promise that the process will provide clean energy with a limitless supply of fuel. However, decades of research have not produced a viable nuclear fusion power plant. Is there another path forward?
In the June issue of the Journal of Fusion Energy, Dr. Wallace Manheimer has laid out a plan that would enable Fusion Breeding as a means to meet mid-century energy needs, based on the scientific underpinnings of current fusion technology and on current nuclear infrastructure. In this approach, a Fusion Reactor is designed to not only produce electricity, but also to create nuclear fuel that can run thermal nuclear reactors. A fusion breeder is about ten times as a prolific a fuel producer as a fission breeder, i.e. a fast neutron fission reactor such as the Integral Fast Reactor.
Read the whole article on phys.org website
WEST newsletter # 5 just published
28 May 2014
At Cadarache (south of France), the Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (CEA/DSM/IRFM) is modifying the Tore Supra plasma facility to become a test platform open to all ITER partners : the WEST project (acronym derived from W Environment in Steady-state Tokamak, where W is the chemical symbol for tungsten).

The goal is to equip the tokamak with an actively cooled tungsten divertor, benefitting from its unique long pulse capabilities, its high level of additional power and the unique experience of operation with actively cooled components.

Read the latest news from the WEST project in the attached document.

ITER Day in Moscow: attracting the best minds
26 May 2014
​On 21 May, directly after the regular class schedule, students, graduates and young scientists of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology had the chance to meet representatives of the Russian Domestic Agency. The exchange was organized as part of ITER Day to inform Russia's future physicists about the international collaboration for fusion, progress in its implementation, and the ongoing activities in Russia carried out within its framework.

The head of the Russian Domestic Agency, Anatoly Krasilnikov, stressed that attraction of young scientists for fusion is based not only on the potential of the ITER Project, but also the national development program for the construction of a domestic fusion facility. "This is the decades-long project and we need highly qualified personnel to work for it!" ITER Russia is intensifying its activities to inform and attract the best minds.

During ITER Day, students heard about development work on a number of diagnostic systems for ITER (reflectometry, neutron diagnostics, optical systems) underway in Russian institutes where, the speakers stressed, employments opportunities exist.

Convoy passing through the Caronte Canal
23 May 2014
​A six-kilometre-long channel, the Canal de Caronte, leads from the Mediterranean Gulf of Fos into the inland sea Étang de Berre. At its narrowest along the south shore of the island that encloses the old town of Martigues, its width does not exceed 25 metres.

On Monday 31 March, the barge carrying the 800-ton ITER test convoy deftly negotiated the canal and passed under the Martigues drawbridge, a spectacular sight that marks the entrance into the Étang de Berre.

Click here to watch a video of the passage produced by Agence Iter France.

Pulsing power into the machine
22 May 2014
​ITER's Pulsed Power Electrical Network (PPEN) will supply alternating current (AC) power to the machine's superconducting coils and heating and current drive systems. The Chinese Domestic Agency has full responsibility for the procurement of this powerful system; recently Manufacturing Readiness Reviews held at three industrial suppliers proved the high standards of design carried out so far and the readiness of the detailed work plans and execution processes.

In the presence of a large number of Chinese experts as well as representatives from the ITER Organization, reviews were held on six system sub-packages in April. For the technical issues identified, a work schedule has been established. A major step forward toward manufacturing has been achieved for the PPEN, which will distribute up to 500 MW of continuous power during operational pulses.
European labs to design the fast-ion diagnostic for ITER
21 May 2014
​The European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy, has signed a four-year Framework Partnership Agreement with a consortium formed by European research centres—DTU Denmark and IST-IPFN Portugal—for the development and design of the Collective Thompson Scattering diagnostic for ITER.

The primary objective of the Collective Thomson Scattering (CTS) diagnostic is to monitor fast ion behaviour across the plasma radius in seven locations. Fast ions are elusive particles that are a natural consequence of the fusion process and plasma heating techniques. Although they represent less than five percent of plasma density, fast ions carry up to one-third of the plasma's kinetic energy. Optimizing their confinement within the plasma is important as they play a major part in sustaining the high plasma temperatures required for fusion by colliding with—and transferring their energy to—the 'bulk' particles in the plasma.
 
However, fast ions behave unpredictably; while some remain within the magnetic field, others escape the plasma and reduce confinement, or 'cause mischief' by contributing their energy to and amplifying plasma disturbances.
 
The CTS diagnostic system will consist of mirrors and antennas integrated into one of the equatorial ports of the ITER machine. The upper antenna and mirrors will launch a powerful, single and high frequency microwave beam (1 MW at 60 GHz, equivalent to 1,000 microwave ovens at full power) into the plasma and record the scattered electromagnetic waves through the lower mirrors and receiver antennas. These measurements will allow scientists to establish the dynamics and distribution of the ions in the plasma—in particular the fast ions.
 
Read more on the Fusion for Energy and the DTU Denmark websites.
Superconductivity and magnetism in Turkey
21 May 2014
​Every other year, Turkey organizes the International Conference on Superconductivity and Magnetism (ICSM). On 27 April-2 May, the fourth edition of the conference was held in Antalya, on the southwestern coast of the country, gathering more than 1,000 scientists from all over the world.

At the special opening plenary session on 27 April, after a welcome speech by Annette Bussmann-Holder from the Max Planck Institute for Solid State, the next speaker gave a recollection of his long experience researching oxides: Alexander Müller, who earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1987 with Georg Bednorz, had just celebrated his 87th birthday and recalled having participated in the 1958 Geneva conference where the concept of tokamak was first discussed outside Russia. He is also the co-author of a patent on spherical plasma confinement.
 
Arnaud Devred, ITER Superconductor Section Leader, had the privilege of speaking just after Alexander Müller. His general presentation on the ITER Project focused on the magnet systems and detailed the present status of manufacturing. "I sensed a real interest in ITER," he says, "particularly from Prof. Ali Gencer, who chaired the conference and is a strong promoter of the project in government circles."
UK discovery 'starts race' to turn light into matter
20 May 2014


Physicists have uncovered a surprisingly straightforward strategy for turning light into matter.

The design, published in Nature Photonics, adapts technology used in fusion research and can be implemented at existing facilities in the UK.
Several locations could now enter a race to convert photons into positrons and electrons for the very first time.

This would prove an 80-year-old theory by Breit and Wheeler, who themselves thought physical proof was impossible.
Now, according to researchers from Imperial College London, that proof is within reach.

Prof Steven Rose and his PhD student, Oliver Pike, told the BBC it could happen within a year.

"With a good experimental team, it should be quite doable," said Mr Pike.

If the experiment comes to fruition, it will be the final piece in a puzzle that began in 1905, when Einstein accounted for the photoelectric effect with his model of light as a particle.
 

Read the whole article on bbc.com.

 

Latest issue of 'Fusion in Europe' online
20 May 2014
Visit the EFDA website to read the May issue of Fusion in Europe on line.
Article highlights include the latest news on the establishment of EUROfusion—the umbrella organization of European fusion research that will succeed EFDA; upgrade work on the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST); this year's work program for JET, currently the largest functioning tokamak in the world; and news from some of the younger faces of fusion.
Consult Fusion in Europe here.  
A conversation with Prof. Predhiman Krishan Kaw
18 May 2014
In this video, Prof. Predhiman Krishan Kaw, the former Director of the Institute for Plasma Research (IPR) in Gandhinagar, India, speaks about his life, research in plasma physics and ... ITER.

India and the historic global effort to find new energy
16 May 2014
The energy source for the future is being incubated in Gandhinagar. Scientists of the city-based Institute of Plasma Research (IPR) are contributing to the heart of the world's biggest tokamak fusion reactor, ITER. 

India is contributing to building the cryostat and vacuum vessel, which is the heaviest and the largest part of the ITER reactor where the fusion will take place. This is the biggest scientific collaboration known to humankind and will produce unlimited supplies of cheap, clean, and safe energy from atomic fusion. 


Read more in The Times of India.

Preparations for the operation of Wendelstein 7-X starting at IPP Greifswald
16 May 2014
​After years of calculation, planning, component production and installation, the Wendelstein 7-X project is now entering a new phase: in May the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald, Germany began preparing for operation. Wendelstein 7-X will be the world's largest stellarator fusion device.


Read more on the IPP website.

5 years, $2.5 million to explore hot edge of fusion plasmas
16 May 2014
​Physicist Brian Grierson of the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has won a highly competitive Early Career Research Program award sponsored by the DOE's Office of Science. The five-year grant will total some $2.5 million and fund exploration of the mechanisms that govern the formation and maintenance of the hot edge of fusion plasmas — the electrically charged gas that results in fusion reactions in facilities called tokamaks. The work will be carried out on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego.

Read more on the PPPL website.

Nuclear startups reimagine atomic energy
16 May 2014
​To most people, the outlook for nuclear power wouldn't seem bright. The Fukushima disaster in Japan three years ago increased public resistance to the industry. Cheap natural gas is undercutting its competitiveness. Aging nuclear plants around the country, including Vermont Yankee in Vernon, Vt., are shutting down.

But into this bleak environment come two startups with roots at MIT hoping to revive an industry that has long struggled to make a comeback. Their technologies aim to solve issues that have bedeviled nuclear power for decades: safety, cost, and radioactive waste.

Transatomic Power, a three-person firm sharing incubator space at the Cambridge Innovation Center, is designing a reactor that would be cheaper than coal and generate electricity from spent fuel rods — aka radioactive waste — piling up in the nation's nuclear plants. UPower Technologies is developing a miniature atomic power plant that would be cheaper and cleaner than diesel generators used in remote locations.

Read the whole article on bostonglobe website.
A letter from the ITER Director-General on the meeting of the Fourteenth ITER Council
14 May 2014
The ITER Project is a global project that brings together seven Members: China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States. It aims to contribute a viable solution to the energy and environmental challenges facing humankind. By producing 500 MW of thermal power, ITER will demonstrate the availability and integration of the science, the technology, and the safety features of a fusion reactor.
 
Since 1985, when the ITER Project was given a decisive political push, the world has experienced many crises. In 2007, at the Elysée Palace in Paris, the seven Members signed the Joint Implementation Agreement that formally established the ITER Organization. As a long-term international project, aimed at providing mankind with a safe and unlimited energy source, ITER has made it a rule to keep away from the world's political and diplomatic discussions.
 
It is ITER's philosophy that the project should not be impacted by situations or events developing outside its direct area of competence. ITER Organization Director-General Osamu Motojima has sent the attached letter to the Heads of Delegations of the seven ITER Members to voice his concern about the current international situation "and its possible political impact on the ITER Project." The ITER Director-General strongly encourages the seven ITER Members, together with the ITER Organization, to proactively work at solving any issue.
 
Thanks to great effort of the ITER Council Chair, all Members have been working very harmoniously to ensure that world situations do not affect the progress of the project. We are very glad to know that if some Members have issues, the rest will work with them to find a solution that is acceptable to all. Fifty percent of the world population and 80 percent of GDP are represented by the seven Members of ITER. The ITER Project creates a new collaborative culture and standard aimed at solving energy and environmental problems and contributing to world peace.   
Back to the future: are we about to crack fusion energy?
08 May 2014
Can we harness the energy of an earth-bound sun? It's a question that has obsessed and perplexed scientists for more than half a century. According to Professor Steve Cowley, director of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) and chief executive of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, it remains one of the "great quests" in science.

For the uninitiated, it's the kind of big idea that makes your head spin: we're talking about mimicking the process that powers the stars, heating hydrogen atoms to temperatures in excess of 100 million degrees celsius — the point at which they fuse into heavier helium atoms — and releasing energy in the process.

The creation of a self-sustaining reaction here on Earth would be a revolutionary moment for humanity. It would mean we'd have a near-limitless source of energy that is clean, safe and cheap. The fuel used for fusion (two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium) is so abundant it will effectively never run out; one kilogram of it provides the same amount of energy as 10 million kilograms of fossil fuel.

And while some fusion reactor components would become mildly radioactive over time, they should be safe to recycle or dispose of conventionally within 100 years, according to fusion experts.

Read the whole article on The Guardian website.
Tokamak tales from the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy
07 May 2014
Want to know what it's like to work in fusion? In a new blog from the Culhan Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), graduate physicists and engineers lift the lid on life at Culham.
Tokamak Tales aims to show the world what the graduates get up to. What they do day-to-day, what exciting projects they are working on, and their experiences as a CCFE graduate.
Editor Ailsa Sparkes says: "The aim is to have an informal platform which is interesting to read for the public and for our staff. We are going to show you what it's like to work at a major lab and what progress we're making with fusion energy — we hope to both amuse and enlighten you! We're looking forward to getting comments and questions, and we'd also welcome contributions from other fusion researchers."
Northern lights' physics could aid in nuclear fusion
07 May 2014
​The aurora is more than just a breathtaking display of light. It may also hold the secret of a magnetic phenomenon related to the nuclear fusion powering the sun. This secret could even help create nuclear fusion in the lab, says a team of researchers.

[...] Now a team of researchers from the University of Michigan and Princeton University hopes that the performance of fusion experiments can be improved by investigating of the dynamics of magnetic fields observed during the aurora.

Read more on LiveScience website.

Pushing negative ion beam technology to the extreme
06 May 2014
​The newly commissioned ELISE test facility has begun operation at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Science (IPP) in Garching, Germany. Funded by the European Domestic Agency as a voluntary European contribution to the neutral beam program, ELISE (Extraction from a Large Ion Source Experiment) is the first large radio-frequency-driven negative ion source in the world, approximately half the size of the source that will be installed at ITER for the neutral beam injectors.

In this latest video from the European Domestic Agency, the scientists and engineers responsible for operating ELISE talk about plans for the test bed, the challenges of achieving ITER performance parameters, and the importance of research carried out within the frame of the experiment for the ITER neutral beam development program.
Visit the European Domestic Agency website to watch the video.
Wendelstein 7-X ready to switch on
06 May 2014
​On 20 May, the world will witness a welcome staging post in the quest to develop nuclear fusion, when Germany's Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics switches on the Wendelstein 7-X, an earth-bound machine built to mimic the way in which stars generate energy.

The project is part of the German national fusion research program but has received significant support at nearly 30 percent of the total cost from the EU's Euratom program.
 
Despite its schedule slipping eight years, from 2006 to 2014, and the cost doubling from an original EUR 500 million to more than EUR 1 billion, the anticipation among fusion scientists is palpable.
 
Eventually, it is hoped, the Wendelstein 7-X will provide a baseline for a future commercial power plant that like the sun and the stars derives energy from the fusion of atomic nuclei.
 
Read more on the Science-Business website.
From ITER back to Europe
06 May 2014
​The European Commission has appointed Maria de Aires Soares as the Head of its Representation in Portugal. She will take up office on 16 May 2014.

Mrs Soares brings to her new role proven leadership and management skills, an extensive knowledge and experience of the European institutions, a track-record of working with a variety of stakeholders and a strong background in political analysis and communicating policy.

Since November 2011 Mrs Soares has (as a Commission official seconded in the interest of the service) been the Head of the Finance and Budget Division at the ITER Organization in Saint Paul-lez-Durance, France.

Prior to this appointment she served as Minister-Counselor, Head of the Research, Technology, Innovation and Education Section at the Delegation of the European Union to the United States in Washington DC.

Mrs Soares joined the European Commission in 1989 in the Directorate General for Research and Innovation, holding different management positions in areas ranging from administration and finance to researchers' mobility and energy.

In particular she promoted and developed an energy cooperation strategy between the European Union and Brazil, China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US.

She was admitted to the Lisbon Bar in 1980 and started her professional career at a law firm in Lisbon. Immediately before joining the European Commission she held a senior position in the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva.

She is a Law graduate from the University of Lisbon and holds a Ph. D. in Law from the University of Montpellier.

Sun's fractal surprise could help fusion on Earth
05 May 2014
​THE sun has thrown us a fractal surprise. An unexpected pattern has been glimpsed in the solar wind, the turbulent plasma of charged particles that streams from the sun. It offers clues for handling plasmas that roil inside nuclear fusion reactors on Earth.

Composed of charged particles such as protons and electrons, the solar wind streams from the sun and pervades the solar system. Its flow is turbulent, containing eddies and moving at different speeds in different directions. It was thought that this turbulence was similar to that in a fluid, behaving like mixing ocean currents or the air flows that make aeroplane flights bumpy.

Read the whole article on the New Scientist website.

Top Ten Reasons for ITER
29 Apr 2014
​As climate change becomes a serious national security threat, we must look to the future for a clean, safe and sustainable source of energy for our future. The ITER experiment will be the largest ITERexperimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor, located at Cadarache, France. Through ITER, we can find solutions to control fusion energy, so that it can be commercialized to provide the world with a sustainable energy source. This project was born in 1985 in hopes of peace through energy cooperation between the superpowers of the Soviet Union and the U.S.

Today, its members include China, the European Union, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United States of America. With recent controversy over the mismanagement of the ITER structure, the U.S. has reevaluated its position in funding the ITER project. If the U.S. withdraws from the project, we will fall behind in energy research and will not be able to reap theITER numerous benefits that ITER offers. Below I state the top ten reasons why ITER is beneficial for the United States.

- By Kathy Duong, Research Assistant at the American Security Project

Read more on the Peak Oil website.

Could Knots Unravel Mysteries of Fluid Flow?
29 Apr 2014
Spaghetti-thin shoelaces, sturdy hawsers, silk cravats — all are routinely tied in knots. So too, physicists believe, are water, air and the liquid iron churning in Earth's outer core. Knots twist and turn in the particle pathways of turbulent fluids, as stable in some cases as a sailor's handiwork. For decades, scientists have suspected the rules governing these knots could offer clues for untangling turbulence — one of the last great unknowns of classical physics — but any order exhibited by the knots was lost in the surrounding chaos.
 
Now, with deft new tools at their fingertips, physicists are beginning to master the art of tying knots in fluids and other flowable entities, such as electromagnetic fields, enabling controlled study of their behavior. "Now that we have these knots, we can measure the shape of them in 3-D; we can look at the flow field around them," said William Irvine, a physicist at the University of Chicago. "We can really figure out what the rules of the game are."
 

Read more on Quanta Magazine website.

Tony Donné appointed EUROfusion programme manager
29 Apr 2014
On April 23 the General Assembly of European Fusion Research Units appointed Tony Donné as Programme Manager for the consortium EUROfusion, which is currently being set up. EUROfusion is to succeed the European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA) as the umbrella organization of Europe's fusion research laboratories. At the moment, Tony Donné is head of the fusion physics theme at the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER). Starting 2 June, he will manage EUROfusion's execution of the European Fusion Roadmap, which aims to realize commercial energy from fusion.

Read the announcement on DIFFER website.

JET to shoot for nuclear fusion record
25 Apr 2014


The JET experiment in Oxfordshire was opened in 1984 to understand fusion - the process that powers the Sun.
Prof Steve Cowley told the BBC a go-ahead to run JET at maximum power would allow scientists to try for the record by the end of the decade.
This could bring Jet up to the coveted goal of "breakeven" where fusion yields as much energy as it consumes.
Fusion is markedly different from current nuclear power, which operates through splitting atoms - fission - rather than squashing them together as occurs in fusion.
"We're hoping to repeat our world record shots and extend them," Prof Cowley, who is director of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy - which hosts JET, told BBC News.
"Our world record was from 1997, we think we can improve on it quite considerably and get some really spectacular results. We're winding up to that and by the end of the decade we'll be doing it."
 
Read more on BBC News website
Calming Plasma's Stormy Seas
24 Apr 2014
​For decades, controlled nuclear fusion has held the promise of a safe, clean, sustainable energy source that could help wean the world from fossil fuels. But the challenges of harnessing the power of the sun in an Earth-based nuclear fusion reactor have been many, with much of the progress over the last several years coming in incremental advances.

One of the key technical issues that has puzzled physicists is actually a common occurrence in fusion reactions: plasma turbulence. Turbulence inside a reactor can increase the rate of plasma heat loss, significantly impacting the resulting energy output. So researchers have been working to pinpoint both what causes this turbulence and how to control or even eliminate it.
Now simulations run at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) have shed light on a central piece of the puzzle: the relationship between fast ion particles in the plasma and plasma microturbulence.
Read the whole article on NERSC website.
7th ITER International School
18 Apr 2014
The 7th ITER International School will be held on 25-29 August 2014 at ITER on the first day and downtown Aix-en-Provence on the second. The focus this year will be on "Highly parallel computing in modelling magnetically confined plasmas for nuclear fusion."

This subject has an interdisciplinary character: high-performance computing is a key-tool for facing problems in different fields of magnetically confined fusion. It is one of the main subjects for achieving the expected results in the future ITER reactor.

The ITER International school aims to prepare young scientists for working in the field of nuclear fusion and in research applications associated with the ITER Project.

The first ITER school was organized during July 2007 in Aix-en-Provence, and was focused on turbulent transport in fusion plasmas. Five different editions have followed: 2008 in Fukuoka, Japan (magnetic confinement); 2009 in Aix-en-Provence (plasma-surface interaction); 2010 in Austin, Texas (Magneto-Hydro-Dynamics); 2011 in Aix-en-Provence (energetic particles); and finally 2012 in Ahmedabad, India (on radio-frequency heating).

More information here.

 

A short guide to fusion energy
17 Apr 2014
​​In theory, it's possible to shoot some energy at hydrogen and get even more energy back. The process is called thermonuclear fusion, and if we could ever get fusion power to work — a big if — we'd never have to worry about our energy problems again.
It's not a completely crazy notion. Nuclear fusion already takes place in the sun's core, after all. And the promise of fusion power has led researchers to try their best for decades upon decades. Occasionally, they even make some advances — as happened this past winter, when scientists got closer to fusion power than ever.

Trouble is, the scientific and technical hurdles ahead are still enormous — in fact, we still don't have a full grasp on what all the hurdles might be. Still, the potential pay-off is so massive that countries have sunk billions and billions of dollars into fusion research.

So here's a guide to how far humanity has come on thermonuclear fusion — and how far we still have to go.

Read more on Vox website.
"We may have a tale to tell our grandchildren"
09 Apr 2014
On this day in 1984, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II​​ offically inaugurated the JET installation at Culham Center for Fusion Energy. EFDA,  the European Fusion Development Agreement, has just posted a video of the opening, featuring the Queen's address to the guests, among whom French President François Mitterrand and Gaston Thorn, president of the European Commission.
Applications open for F4E summer internships
09 Apr 2014
​Interested in a career in fusion? Want to gain practical experience in a European working environment?

The European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy (F4E), is offering two-to-three month summer internships at its offices in Barcelona, Spain for EU or Swiss nationals aged 18-25 who are following university studies.

Applications can be filled out online at: https://studentships.f4e.europa.eu/. The deadline for submission is 25/04/2014 at midday CET.

German Physical Society announces "The Physics of ITER"
09 Apr 2014
From 22-26 September, a Physics School will be organized by the Germany Physical Society DPG at the Physikzentrum in Bad Honnef, Germany with the theme "The Physics of ITER." The invited speakers and range of subjects will represent the wide range of expertise from the EU Fusion Programme. The Physics School targets young physicists at the early stage of their career but will also attract physicists from all fields and fusion scientists.

The Physics School, strongly supported by the Heraeus Foundation, provides an affordable opportunity to deepen knowledge in fusion-oriented physics with a special concentration on ITER.
 
More information can be found at the dedicated website.
How a new star will be born
07 Apr 2014
​The ITER project is truly at the frontier of knowledge, a collective effort to explore the tantalizing future of free, clean and inexhaustible energy offered by nuclear fusion. Where the Large Hadron Collider at CERN pushes the boundaries of physics to find the origins of matter, the ITER Project seeks to give humans an endless stream of power which could have potentially game-changing consequences for the entire planet.

Read the article on Euronews website.
Agence Iter France director to co-preside Eurofusion
02 Apr 2014
​Director of Agence Iter France, former director of JET (2000-2006) and former head of the European Fusion Development Agreement EFDA (2006-2009), Jérôme Pamela was recently appointed co-president of Eurofusion.

The new consortium, which succeeds EFDA, is the answer of the European fusion community to the new challenges of the "ITER era." It aims at streamlining the fusion programs of the European laboratories and installations in order to contribute to ITER with maximum efficiency.

"We also have to prepare for DEMO, the 'demonstration installation' that will come after ITER," explains Jérôme Pamela,  "and to train a new generation of physicists who will operate ITER and build DEMO."

Jérôme will be co-presiding Eurofusion alongside Sybille Günter, director of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, IPP Garching.
 
Photo © AIF - V. Paul
Questions and answers with Stephen Dean and Daniel Clery
02 Apr 2014
​Two recently published books describe the history of nuclear fusion research. Search for the Ultimate Energy Source: A history of the US Fusion Energy Program (Springer, 2013) is written by Stephen Dean, president of Fusion Power Associates, a nonprofit advocacy organization. Dean is also a former administrator of the US Department of Energy's fusion research program. Science magazine deputy news editor Daniel Clery's A Piece of the Sun: The Quest for Fusion Energy (Overlook Press, 2013), provides a more global perspective on the same subject.

Physics Today reviewed both books together in March and recently caught up with the authors to discuss their respective works.


Read the interview on physicstoday website.

ITER site works popular on YouTube
31 Mar 2014
​The European Domestic Agency, with responsibility for the construction of the 39 buildings of the ITER installation, launched its first video on YouTube four years ago. Since then, over 100,000 viewers have followed its regular postings on site progress, industry collaboration and manufacturing.

Find out more here.

ITER at the Cité des Sciences in Paris
31 Mar 2014
An exposition on ITER is running from now until 8 June at the Cité des Sciences (Parc de la Villette, Paris). Combining different media—display panels, videos, interviews—the exposition is designed to interest a wide public, including a younger audience.

See the Cité des Sciences website for more information (in French).

ITER represented at NewGen future energy forum in Moscow
27 Mar 2014
​The ITER Project is present at this week's NewGen—Future Energy forum in Moscow, where industry and political actors from Russia and abroad debate innovation in energy. 

Anatoly Krasilnikov, head of ITER Russia, led a round table on 26 March titled "Innovative Discussions in the ITER Project" with participation from the Troitsk Institute for Innovation and Fusion Research (TRINITI) and the Tokamak Physics Institute at the Kurchatov Institute.

One topic of discussion was the readiness to begin designing "fusion-fission" hybrid energetics in Russia. "Today we've got everything to start designing," said the deputy director of the Tokamak Physics Institute, Boris Kuteev. "Together with the ITER Project, the implementation of a hybrid project would significantly contribute to creation of a fusion power plant in future."

Puffing hydrogen for self-protection
25 Mar 2014
​Researchers of the FOM Institute DIFFER have discovered that the wall material of a fusion reactor can shield itself from high energy plasma bursts. The wall material tungsten seems to expel a cloud of cooling hydrogen particles that serves as a protective layer. The research team publishes their results on 24 March 2014 in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

[...] The heart of a fusion reactor like ITER contains an extremely hot plasma, from which short, intense energy bursts rain down on the reactor wall. In ITER, the tungsten wall will face powerful discharges of several gigawatts per square meter, several times per second.  However, researchers at FOM Institute DIFFER discovered that under some conditions less than half of that incoming energy actually hits the surface.

The physicists used their linear plasma experiment Pilot-PSI to show that the tungsten surface shields itself from the blast by expelling a cloud of cooling hydrogen particles. This is the first time that fusion researchers see the energy pulses and the wall react to each other at this level of detail.


Caption: Hydrogen plasma in DIFFER's linear plasma generator Pilot-PSI. Credit: Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM)


Read more on the DIFFER website.

   

14 Million Yomiuri readers will hear about ITER
25 Mar 2014
​With a combined morning and evening circulation of more than 14 million, the Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun is number one among the world's biggest selling newspapers.

Last Friday 21 March the Yomiuri dispatched one of its science reporters, Kyoichi Sasazawa, to the ITER site. The reporter met with ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima and ITER DDG Carlos Alejaldre and visited the ITER construction site. "In Japan, knowledge of fusion needs to be improved," he observed.

The article he's preparing will be published in Japan in late April and will also appear in the English edition of the Yomiuri.

Caption: DG Motojima and Yomiuri science writer Kyoichi Sasazawa take in the Tokamak Pit view from the Assembly Hall slab.

 

25 years ago: "The scientific fiasco of the century"
25 Mar 2014
​Twenty five years ago, University of Utah scientists announced a discovery that touched off a worldwide sensation.

"Basically, we've established a sustained nuclear fusion reaction by means which are considerably simpler than conventional techniques," said Professor Stanley Pons on 23 March 1989. He was describing an experiment on the Utah campus that sent waves of optimism around the globe.

Some thought so-called "cold fusion" would solve the world's energy problems and lead to widespread peace and prosperity. But it wasn't long before those hopes crumbled. At least one prominent scientist later denounced it as "the scientific fiasco of the century."

Read more here. 

Researchers model spent nuclear fuels
24 Mar 2014
Lawrence Livermore scientists have modeled actinide-based alloys, such as spent nuclear fuel, in an effort to predict the impact of evolving fuel chemistry on material performance.

This work, funded by a Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program on "Scientific Basis for Ultra-high Burn-up Nuclear Fuels," could have direct implications for the use of as another source of energy.

Despite the limited availability of experimental thermodynamic data, this new approach can predict important features contained in phase diagrams, namely phases and their stability in composition-temperature domains and microstructures, and more importantly, guide and motivate further experiments for validating the methodology and the data for subsequent modeling of materials performance at higher scale, according to Patrice Turchi, lead author of a review paper appearing in the March issue of the Journal of the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (JOM).

Read the full article here.

Making synthetic diamond crystals in a plasma reactor
21 Mar 2014
​Diamonds are highly sought after as jewelry and as a form of capital investment. They are also prized by the research community, but not because of their brilliance or symbolic significance — it is their physical properties that make these gems precious to scientists.

Diamonds are extremely hard, have unrivaled thermal conductivity and have a broadband spectral transparency that stretches from ultraviolet to far infrared, making them the ideal material for a host of different applications. Consequently, there is a large market for synthetic diamonds: they can cut through steel as if it were paper, dig their way through the earth on the tips of drilling heads, are used as scalpels in operations and can act as bio-electrochemical sensors for detecting substances such as DNA.

Read more here.

Indian community celebrates Holi festival
20 Mar 2014
Holi Hai!!  

Holi, the Indian festival of colours (also known as the festival of love), is a celebration of the arrival of Spring. The festival symbolizes happiness and brings together families and friends for delicious food and lots of fun.
 
On Sunday, 16 March near Manosque, nearly 50 people—ITER staff from India, friends and families—gathered to celebrate this most colourful holiday.
 

 
 

Busy days in China
14 Mar 2014
​During a recent visit to China, ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima met with high-level representatives of government and had the opportunity to visit some of the factories where fabrication is underway on components within the Chinese scope.

On March 5, 2014, Vice Minister Jianlin Cao of MOST, head of the Chinese delegation to the ITER Council, received the Director-General and colleagues Ju Jin, ITER Deputy Director-General, Sachiko Ishizaka, Secretary to the ITER Council, and members of the Project Control Division for an exchange of views on recent developments in the ITER Project. The following day, the ITER Director-General visited the headquarters of China National Nuclear Corporation in Beijing, meeting with Chief Engineer Zengguang Lei and ITER Management Advisory Committee (MAC) Chair Jiashu Tian.
 
During his three-day stay he was also able to pay visits to Western Superconducting Technologies in Xi'an City, the company responsible for the manufacturing of ITER superconducting strand, and Nantong Shenhai Science and Industrial Technology, responsible for the surface-plating of ITER niobium-tin and niobium-titanium superconducting strands.  
More than a year in Provence
13 Mar 2014
​In the Spring issue of InFusion, a publication from the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), Mike Walsh, head of the ITER Diagnostic Division and Neill Taylor, former Division head of Nuclear Safety and Analysis, reflect on their experiences at ITER.  

Read it here (p.12-13).

 

 

World's largest energy initiative comes to Wollongong
11 Mar 2014
​One of the people responsible for the manufacture of the magnet system at the heart of ITER presented a special guest seminar recently to staff and students at the Australian Institute for Innovative Materials.

Arnaud Devred, Superconductor Systems and Auxiliaries Section leader at ITER, is responsible for the in-kind procurement of the superconducting cable-in-conduit conductors which are expected to cost around $US1 billion, about half of the whole cost of the ITER magnet system.

Read the original article here.

What's the Moon Worth?
11 Mar 2014
​Without the moon, we probably wouldn't exist.  In that sense, the moon's value is infinite -- but what if you wanted to put a dollar amount on that rock? Most scientists think the rock is made up of elements like iron and magnesium, but the most valuable part of its structure may be Helium-3. Hard to find on Earth, the isotope can power nuclear fusion reactors, a potentially mammoth answer to future energy needs.

 

Read the full article here.

 

 

 

Dhiraj Bora on fusion
09 Mar 2014
Dhiraj Bora, present Director of the Institute for Plasma Research, Gujarat and former ITER Deputy-Director General, explains what a fusion reaction is, what conditions it requires, and what hurdles scientists face in achieving it.

Read ​Prof. Dhiraj Bora's interview here.

 

Spitzer: Fusion Vs Fission
09 Mar 2014
​When a science-mad artificial intelligence system (voiced by GLaDOS actress Ellen McLain) is installed at NASA, two hapless computer technicians learn the process behind nuclear fusion in the Sun, and how it differs from fission.

Watch the video here.

Going nuclear—in a small way
07 Mar 2014
​New research has provided a comprehensive overview of new small-scale nuclear reactors, which could be suitable candidates to cope with the world's ever-growing demand for energy. According to official estimates, world energy consumption in 2035 will be more than double that of 1995. A substantial challenge for engineers and scientists over the coming decades is to develop and deploy power plants with sufficient capacity and flexibility to meet this increasing need while simultaneously reducing emissions. The new article aims to show to what extent a new type of nuclear reactor, termed the 'Small Modular Reactor' (SMR), might provide a solution to fulfil these energy needs.

 
Read full article on Science Daily website.
 

The 17 Countries Generating The Most Nuclear Power
07 Mar 2014


While the popularity of nuclear power worldwide took a major hit in the aftermath of the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Disaster in 2011, it remains one of the cheapest, most efficient, and carbon-friendly forms of energy generation that we currently have.

Energy superpowers like the United States, Russia, and Canada have made nuclear power lucrative, not just through cheap energy, but through licensing their technology to developing countries looking for a new energy source. For that reason, nuclear power has remained a viable and important form of energy, one which will be integral to the world over the next fifty years.

We took a look at global statistics provided by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency to determine which countries are the biggest nuclear energy powers. We rated each country based on the total amount of electricity produced by nuclear power.

Read the full article on Business Insider Australia website.
 

Major U.S. Science Agencies Face Flat Prospects
05 Mar 2014
​President Barack Obama this morning released a $3.901 trillion budget request to Congress, including proposals for a host of federal research agencies.

(...)

Once again there are winners and losers in the proposed budget for 2015 the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Science, the single largest funder of the physical sciences in the United States. Overall, the Office of Science budget would creep up by just 0.9% from its current level to $5.111 billion. But whereas some research programs, such as advance computing, would see double-digit increases, others, such as fusion, would take deep cuts. (...)

In contrast, the fusion program would take a 17.6% cut to $416 million—$88 million less than it's getting this year. Although far from final, the numbers suggest another big dip for a program that has enjoyed a roller coaster ride in recent years. In its proposed 2013 budget, DOE called for slashing spending on domestic fusion research to help pay for the increasing U.S. contribution to the international fusion experiment, ITER, in Cadarache, France. That budget also called for closing one of three smaller fusion experiments, or tokamaks, in the United States, the Alcator C-Mod at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. But that budget never passed and last December, when Congress finally agreed to a budget for this year, it restored funding for C-Mod and gave the fusion program a handsome boost of nearly $200 million. The new budget request would give some of that increase back and suggests DOE officials see bigger priorities elsewhere.

Read full article on Science website.



Physicists start thinking beyond the LHC, consider reviving the SSC
03 Mar 2014
​Will particle physicists ever have a new toy that will take them to energies beyond those accessible through the Large Hadron Collider? History suggests it's unlikely. To save costs, the LHC was built in an existing tunnel that had hosted an earlier, less powerful accelerator. The US cancelled the construction of hardware that would have outperformed the LHC (the Superconducting Super Collider, or SSC) due to cost overruns, and it shut down its Tevatron once the LHC started up. Now, decisions on the linear collider that will be used to study the Higgs in detail are being made based on which country is likely to come up with the most money.

But physicists are apparently an optimistic bunch. Earlier this year, CERN announced that it was beginning to evaluate an LHC replacement that would require a tunnel so large—100km in circumference—that it would have to pass under Lake Geneva itself. Potentially in response, a team of US-based physicists have come up with an even more audacious plan: don't build the linear collider, resurrect the SSC's now abandoned tunnels, and use them to both host a Higgs factory and as a booster for a truly massive, 270km collider.
 

Read the full article on Ars Technica website.

 

WEST Newsletter Feb. issue
03 Mar 2014
In Cadarache, France, the CEA-Euratom tokamak Tore Supra is undergoing a major transformation to be used as a test bench for ITER. This is the WEST project (W - for tungsten - Environment in Steady-state Tokamak).

The February issue of the WEST newsletter is now available online.

Superconductivity for Energy 2014
27 Feb 2014
​Registration is open now for the Superconductivity for Energy 2014 conference that will be held in Paestum, Italy on 15-19 May 2014.

Conference topics include high power superconductor applications (materials, cables, magnets); frontiers in high field magnet technology; superconductors for energy; power devices; high current superconductivity; and superconducting properties and functionalities for new applications.

The event is organized in the framework of the PON Project "NAFASSY" (NAtional FAcility for Superconducting SYstems) by the Physics Department of the University of Salerno in collaboration with the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), the National Research Council (CNR), and the Center for New Technologies (CRdC).

All information can be found on the conference website.

News update from US ITER
27 Feb 2014
The February 2014 issue of the US ITER News Update is now available online. The newsletter highlights the recent progress in the ITER systems under US responsibility (pellet injection system,tokamak cooling water system, central solenoid magnet, etc.) and relates the very solid budget situation for fiscal year 2014.

You can read the latest news from US ITER here.

Our very own telecommunication pylon
23 Feb 2014
On a warm sunny afternoon last week, ITER welcomed its very own telecommunication pylon which proudly stands 35 metres high beside the Visitors Centre. It's been equipped with 2G and 3G technologies with scope for 4G technology in the near future. SFR antennas at the top of this pylon cover the whole ITER site. Negotiations to bring in another carrier will take place at the end of this year and if everything falls into place, Orange soon will be seen sharing this telecommunication pylon along with SFR.

 

Fusion Academy dates announced
20 Feb 2014
Back by popular demand! The Fusion Academy is offering two 3-day sessions of its professional crash course in nuclear fusion in the Netherlands in 2014. Registration is now open for the 15-17 April session (deadline 23 March) and 29-31 October session (deadline 7 October).

The Fusion Academy course is open to professionals from the field of fusion research and development (engineers, managers, science journalists ...). Further information can be found at this link.
SOFT 2014: Registration now open
20 Feb 2014
The 28th Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT) will take place from 29 September to 3 October in San Sebastian, Spain, organized by CIEMAT, the Spanish Research Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology.

Considered the top event for the exchange of information on the design, construction and operation of fusion experiments and on the technology for present fusion machines and future power plants, over 800 scientists and engineers working in the field are expected.

The deadline for abstract submission is 18 March. Registration is currently open for industrial exhibitors.

​More information on the 2014 SOFT conference can be found at this link.

February F4E News published
20 Feb 2014
​The latest news from the European Domestic Agency for ITER has been published in the February issue of F4E News, which can be consulted here

Dr Ravi B. Grover receives civilian award in India
20 Feb 2014
​Ravi B. Grover, head of the Indian delegation to the ITER Council, was honoured by the Government of India on the occasion of Republic Day (26 January 2014) with the fourth-highest civilian award, the Padma Shri. 

Dr Grover is the principal adviser of the Department of Atomic Energy in India, a member of the Atomic Energy Commission, and director of the Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI).

He played a pivotal role during negotiations with various governments and the IAEA towards opening international civil nuclear trade between India and other countries. He also played a key role in the negotiations leading up to India joining the ITER Project as a full partner in 2005. He conceptualized and set up the HBNI as a university-level institution.

The ITER community congratulates Dr Grover on his distinguished award.
 

Physics: A fundamental force for future security
13 Feb 2014
​What is matter? What is energy? What holds matter together? How do the various constituents of the universe interact at the most basic level? Where does the Earth sit in relation to the rest of the universe? Can we predict the movements of the stars?

Physics gives us the knowledge to address remarkable questions like these. But knowledge is also power: a better understanding of these laws, allows us to improve the ways we interact with, and harness our environment. And if you look at the rapid development in human technology over the past two centuries, it is amazing just how much technological change has been derived from advances in physics.

Perhaps the most clear-cut example in this respect is the dramatic transformation that electricity has brought about in all modern societies. Our whole way of living now is completely dependent upon being able to generate, transmit, and harness electric power in a safe and efficient manner — all of which is ultimately underpinned by our understanding of physics.

Keeping up with the ever growing demand for generating electricity with minimal environmental impact will be a significant challenge in the years to come.

Read the full article by the Australian political journalist at PhysOrg

New videos highlight the Russian contribution to ITER
12 Feb 2014
​Two new videos produced by the Russian Domestic Agency for ITER highlight the contributions of the Kurchatov Institute (Moscow) and the Ioffe Institute (St Petersburg) to the Project.

Both Institutes are responsible for supplying high performance diagnostic systems to the ITER machine. Follow the work-in-progress at the following links:

Kurchatov Institute

Ioffe Institute

EAST Tokamak team wins Chinese award
12 Feb 2014
The EAST Tokamak team at the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), has won the 2013 National Science and Technology Progress Award for its years of unremitting innovation and teamwork. This comes after winning a prize in 2008 for the successful construction and commissioning of EAST.  

 

This top annual Chinese award recognizes advancements in the natural sciences, technological innovation and science and technology. Jiangang Li, ASIPP director, accepted the award on behalf of the EAST team in a ceremony on 10 January.
 
 

The EAST Tokamak team is one of the three recipients of the Innovation Team prize among the 188 laureates of the 2013 Science and Technology Progress Award.
 

 
 

European Prize for Innovation in fusion research: applications accepted
10 Feb 2014
​The European Commission has launched a prize to reward excellence in innovation in the fusion research program as well as the quality of the researchers and industries involved.

Participants are free to submit an application for any physics or technological innovation developed within the European Fusion research program that has demonstrated market potential.

An independent jury appointed by the European Commission will evaluate the proposals and rank the first, second and third place winners who will receive EUR 15,000, 10,000 and 5,000 respectively. Winners will be announced at the SOFT conference in September 2014.

For more detailed information on general conditions and eligibility, click here.

UK centre for remote handling proposed at Culham
10 Feb 2014
​The Oxford City Deal investment into hi-tech research laboratories and businesses in Oxfordshire, announced this week, was particularly good news for Culham Centre of Fusion Energy, operated by the UK Atomic Energy Authority. A major element of this initiative sees the UK government investing £7.8 million (with matching funds from industry) into a remote applications facility, to be based at a brand new building at Culham.

The facility is part of a broader programme of activities in automated and remote handling and is planned to be built in 2015 and operating in 2016. It will enable CCFE and partner organisations (National Nuclear Laboratory, The Welding Institute Technology Centre, National Physical Laboratory and Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre) to offer their expertise in remote interventions and autonomous systems to a wider commercial sector.
[...]
With the addition of expertise from the project partners, including remote and autonomous working in challenging environments and remote welding techniques, the new centre will offer industry access to an unparalleled concentration of test facilities and expertise to develop and apply technology of remote applications. [...] Fusion research will benefit from the centre as well. Building on CCFE's considerable expertise in remote handling, the centre will enable ever more complex remote handling techniques to be perfected — essential for the efficient and reliable performance of maintenance tasks in the harsh environment inside ITER. And the centre will support CCFE's intention to host one of the design centres for DEMO — the demonstration fusion power reactor expected to follow ITER. 
Read the full article here.
Manufacturer celebrated in Korea for completion of Nb3Sn strand
08 Feb 2014
At the end of January, the National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI) presented Kiswire Advanced Technology (KAT) with a plaque in appreciation of its outstanding contribution to the ITER Project.

In November 2013, Korea became the first Domestic Agency to complete the production of niobium-tin (Nb3Sn) strand for ITER's toroidal field conductors. In four years, the manufacturer KAT fabricated 93 tons of Nb3Sn strand—completing the full Korean contribution to ITER toroidal field conductors.


ORNL study advances quest for better superconducting materials
07 Feb 2014
​Nearly 30 years after the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity, many questions remain, but an Oak Ridge National Laboratory team is providing insight that could lead to better superconductors.

Their work, published in Physical Review Letters, examines the role of chemical dopants, which are essential to creating high-temperature superconductors — materials that conduct electricity without resistance. The role of dopants in superconductors is particularly mysterious as they introduce non-uniformity and disorder into the crystal structure, which increases resistivity in non-superconducting materials.
By gaining a better understanding of how and why chemical dopants alter the behavior of the original (parent) material, scientists believe they can design superconductors that work at higher temperatures. This would make them more practical for real-world wire applications because it would lessen the extreme cooling required for conventional superconducting material.


Read the full Press Release here.

Taking no chances with ITER coils
06 Feb 2014
​The hopes for fusion power ride on the success of the next big international experiment, ITER. So when it comes to keeping ITER running safely, nothing is being left to chance. CCFE is using the latest computer modelling techniques to predict 'worst case scenarios' for the magnets that will control the plasma of fusion fuel inside the machine; meaning the project team at ITER can ensure their protection systems are ready for anything.

Read more on CCFE website.

Lift-off for MAST-Upgrade
05 Feb 2014
​It's all systems go for the upgrade of the UK's fusion experiment MAST after a nailbiting operation to move the entire machine was completed just before Christmas.

In order to refit MAST's magnetic coils, diagnostics, power supplies and a plethora of other systems, the tokamak has had to be stripped down and removed from its machine hall to an assembly area where upgrade work can be carried out. And transporting 25 tonnes of extremely valuable scientific hardware, even a relatively short distance, is no mean feat.

Read more and view a video here.
 

ITER China launches its English website
04 Feb 2014
​ITER China has just launched the English version of its website. Follow this link for procurement news, events and milestones.

A delegation from the Korean National Assembly
03 Feb 2014
Six members of the Korean National Assembly visited ITER on 7 January, accompanied by the head of the Korean Domestic Agency for ITER, Kijung Jung. After a tour of the construction site, which they qualified as "impressive," the delegates were welcomed by ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima who was pleased to have the chance to thank the delegation members for Korea's contribution to the Project and constant support.

2014 will be the Year of Fusion in Russia
02 Feb 2014
During a recent visit to the Budker Institute in Novosibirsk, Russia, Paul Thomas, CODAC, Heating & Diagnostics Directorate head from the ITER Organization, signed two Complementary Diagnostics Procurement Arrangements with the Deputy Director General of Rosatom, Vyacheslav Pershukov.

The Budker Institute is already heavily engaged in the engineering of diagnostic systems in the vacuum vessel ports following a Procurement Arrangement signed in August 2013.

The year 2014 has been announced as the Year of Fusion by the Russian state corporation Rosatom. Industrial engagement in ITER component manufacturing is ramping up at different locations in Russia; Saint Petersburg will be hosting in June the Fourteenth Meeting of the ITER Council; and in October the 25th Fusion Energy Conference, organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency, will be held in the same city.
 
Read the full article here.
 

Striking images of plasma in MAST
01 Feb 2014
​Fusion physicist Alex Meakins has posted some striking photographs of plasmas in MAST, caught before the UK's spherical tokamak shutdown for upgrade.

Watch the photographs on Alex Meakins' Twitter account.

ITER will benefit from 100 gigabits/s transatlantic connection
31 Jan 2014
​Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) researchers have established the first international 100 gigabits/s connection for German science. It will be the basis of better cooperation in data-intensive sciences in the future. At the SC13 International Supercomputing Conference in Denver, KIT's Steinbuch Centre for Computing (SCC) successfully demonstrated this technology.
"As in an orchestra we have now combined the various instruments such that this record speed from end user to end user can be used for the first time in German science," says Professor Dr. Bernhard Neumair, Managing Director of SCC. Interaction of user software and connecting stations was controlled and optimized for this purpose.

The connection is to foster the development of advanced network technologies and to support data-intensive high-end projects, such as the experiments at the LHC in Geneva, at the ITER fusion reactor in France, and in other international programs.
Read more on the  PhysOrg website.


 

PPPL's "Star Power" video
30 Jan 2014
​The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has released "Star Power," a new informational video that uses dramatic images and thought-provoking interviews to highlight the importance of the laboratory's research into magnetic fusion.

Through original music, graphics, live footage and photographs, the video explains fusion, its potential as an abundant renewable energy source and the lab's efforts to harness that energy for widespread use.

The video features 19 PPPL members, including Stewart Prager, director of the lab and a Princeton University professor of astrophysical sciences, and a host of additional scientists, engineers and technicians.

It also includes individuals outside the lab speaking about fusion, from US President Barack Obama to the actors on the television sitcom "The Big Bang Theory."

Read more and watch the video on PPPL website.

 

Biography of one of the 20th century's greatest physicists
29 Jan 2014
One of the greatest and most versatile scientists of the twentieth century, Hans Bethe (1906-2005), is portrayed in a new biography Nuclear Forces: The Making of the Physicist Hans Bethe by Silvan Schweber.

The sheer magnitude of Bethe's scientific accomplishments range across almost every field of theoretical physics; he was probably the last "universalist", a man who could solve virtually any physics problem that came his way.

It was at the end of the 1930s that he made his most lasting contribution — an explanation of the origin of the sun's energy generated through nuclear fusion. As Schweber tells us, Bethe was inspired to solve this problem during a conference, working out the essential details in short order. This was one of those puzzles that scientists had grappled with for more than a hundred years and Bethe solved it in a characteristically direct way. For this achievement he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Read the full article at Scientific American.

Fusion researcher wins Slovenian Zois Award
28 Jan 2014
Dr. Saša Novak, a researcher at the Jožef Stefan Institute (Ljubljana, Slovenia) and an active member of the Slovenian Fusion Association, has been presented with the Zois Award in recognition of her scientific achievements in the field of materials. The Zois Award, awarded annually, is the highest national prize awarded for lifetime achievements in science.

The award cited Dr Novak's scientific work on the colloidal processing of composite materials, in particular the achievement of her group in developing a ceramic composite for the first-wall blanket in future fusion reactors.

Dr. Novak has been involved in fusion research since the establishment of the Slovenian Fusion Association in 2005. Besides investigating and developing fusion-relevant materials, SiC/SiC and W-based composites, she is also active in the area of public information. She is a member of the Public Information Network (PIN) and a member of the Coordination Team of the Fusion Expo.
 --The Zois Award ceremony on 22 November 2013


 

What would happen if ocean water was replaced with deuterium oxide?
27 Jan 2014
​Deuterium oxide has properties that are quite different from light water, the normal water we deal with every day. In general, it will be more dense, have a higher freezing point and boiling point, higher viscosity, higher activity, and most importantly, a higher heat of vaporization and heat of fusion. Check out this chart on Wikipedia to compare the differences.

If the change happened suddenly, then there would be all sorts of problems...

Read more on Slate website.
Calm solar cycle prompts questions about impact on Earth
26 Jan 2014
​The surface of the sun has been surprisingly calm of late, with fewer sunspots than anytime in the last century, prompting curious scientists to wonder just what it might mean here on Earth.

Sunspots have been observed for millennia—first by Chinese astronomers and then, for the first time with a telescope, by Galileo in 1610.

The  appear in roughly 11-year cycles—increasing to a daily flurry and then subsiding drastically, before amping up again.

But this cycle, dubbed cycle 24, has surprised scientists with its sluggishness.
The number of spots counted since it kicked off in December 2008 is well below the average observed over the last 250 years. In fact, it's less than half.

Read more on PhysOrg website.
New antenna spreads good vibrations in fusion plasma
25 Jan 2014
​If you want to catch a firefly, any old glass jar will do. But when you're trying to bottle a star-the goal of fusion energy research-the bottle needs to be very special. A tokamak is one type of fusion bottle, capable of holding extremely hot plasma (10 times hotter than the sun) and keeping it stable while harvesting the prodigious amounts of energy produced in the fusion process. Of course, the trick is to keep the hot stuff in. And this is a complicated task.

Read more on Space Daily website.

Extreme-scale plasma turbulence simulation
24 Jan 2014
​As the global energy economy makes the transition from fossil fuels toward cleaner alternatives, fusion becomes an attractive potential solution for satisfying the growing needs. Fusion energy, which is the power source for the sun, can be generated on earth, for example, in magnetically-confined laboratory plasma experiments (called "tokamaks") when the isotopes of hydrogen (e.g., deuterium and tritium) combine to produce an energetic helium "alpha" particle and a fast neutron — with an overall energy multiplication factor of 450:1.

Read more on HPC ( High Productivity Computing) web site.  

 

Reports from the 55th APS meeting in Denver
23 Jan 2014
The 55th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Plasma Physics concluded on 15 November in Denver, Colorado. Reports of some of the most exciting plasma physics developments reported at the meeting can be consulted at the APS press release page.  

PPPL scientists present cutting-edge results at major physics meeting
22 Jan 2014
​More than 1,500 researchers, including scientists from the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), gathered in Denver, Colorado this week for the 55th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Plasma Physics (DPP) for a five-day conference concluding 15 November.

PPPL scientists will present a host of cutting-edge results at the conference from their latest experiments and theoretical advances in fusion and plasma science. 

Read more about these results on the PPPL website.

Our thermonuclear tomorrow
21 Jan 2014
​Russian Public TV recently aired this 38-minute documentary on the history of fusion research and on the present state of collaboration within ITER.

Click here to view "Our thermonuclear tomorrow" (in Russian)

Uniform energy spread could prevent tokamak disruptions
20 Jan 2014
​Researchers at the 55th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Plasma Physics this week have reported on efforts at the Alcator C-Mod and DIII-D experiments to investigate ways of dispersing the energy of disruptions.

Results suggest that the rotation of instabilities spreads the heat more evenly than the injection of gases like argon or neon. The rotation, which appears to be driven by smaller-scale instabilities, ends up moving the radiating regions around the vessel quickly and thus lowering the average heat load. Further research will determine if scientists can control or encourage this spontaneous rotation, and thus distribute the heat more uniformly to the wall.

Read the full article and access the APS abstracts at Science 2.2.
 

High-level visitor for MIT's Alcator C-Mod
19 Jan 2014
​US Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi visited MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) and the Alcator C-Mod Tokamak, currently in "warm shutdown" status due to budget constraints.

Staff at the experiment are ready to restart operations should funding became available based on Congressional action on the fiscal year 2014 budgets.

Read more at MIT News.

Fusion, for a faster trip to Mars?
18 Jan 2014
​Could fusion someday help power faster trips to Mars?

New propulsion technologies may blast astronauts through space at breakneck speeds in the coming decades, proponents say, making manned Mars missions much faster and safer.

Souped-up electric propulsion systems and rockets driven by nuclear fusion or fission could end up shortening travel times to the Red Planet dramatically, potentially opening up a new era in manned space exploration.

"Using existing rocket fuels, it's nearly impossible for humans to explore much beyond Earth," John Slough of the University of Washington, leader of a team developing a fusion-driven rocket, said in a statement earlier this year. "We are hoping to give us a much more powerful source of energy in space that could eventually lead to making interplanetary travel commonplace."
 

Read more on Space.com.

Fun in fusion research
17 Jan 2014
Fusion energy research is serious business. Generally, it is a lifelong commitment, involving long hours and weekends, along with optimism and dogged determination.

Recently, fusion research has been increasingly in the news, as construction moves forward on ITER in France, which is being designed and built by nations which together encompass most of the world's population. As an inexhaustible source of power, using seawater-derived fuel which is universally available, fusion
energy is recognized as an urgent requirement for the future.

John Sheffield, who has been involved in fusion research for more than 50 years, has seen it all, including the foibles, missteps, failed experiments, and mistranslations that a global scientific research effort create. He has written "Fun in Fusion Research" to capture the very human and fun side of serious science.

Read a review in the attached pdf.

Lovely laboratories
16 Jan 2014
Most scientific breakthroughs have occurred in boring buildings. Can a new generation of architects change that?

Today, expensive new physics buildings are being planned all around the world. The question is, are they any different fromor better thantheir shabby predecessors? Should they express something of the wonder of the world they are built to examine? And will they help answers to the biggest questions emerge?

Like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the ITER Tokamak will be a monumental piece of machinery, a container capable of generatingand containinga mini sun. ITER's Headquarters building, designed by Marseille-based architect Rudy Ricciotti and completed last year, features a dramatic undulating facade. There are many more buildings planned for the site, some more extravagant than others, but the box containing the Tokamak (the plasma-filled doughnut-shaped ball-of-fire container) is disappointingly utilitarian, looking like a big, boxy waste incinerator. Yet here, together with CERN, we have buildings searching for the holy grails of sciencethe Higgs boson, or "God particle", and the power of the sun. These really are our contemporary cathedrals, buildings embodying the power and strangeness of the subatomic world. Yet they express nothing of the wonder that the cathedrals tried to convey.
 
Read the full article on the website of the Financial Times Magazine.
Celebrating Lyman Spitzer, the father of PPPL
15 Jan 2014
Princeton astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer Jr. (1914-1997) was among the 20th century's most visionary scientists. His major influences range from founding the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and its quest for fusion energy, to inspiring the development of the Hubble Space Telescope and its images of the far corners of the universe.

To honor Spitzer's achievements, some 60 scientists from around the world gathered at Princeton University 18-20 October for a 100th birthday celebration of the pioneering physicist. The event, sponsored by the Princeton Department of Astrophysical Sciences and hosted by Princeton astrophysicist and department chair David Spergel, ranged from personal reminiscences of Spitzer the man, to discussions of the latest developments in the fields of fusion, astrophysics and laboratory plasma science that he heavily influenced.

Read more on the PPPL website.

Canyon of fire on the Sun
14 Jan 2014
A magnetic filament of solar material erupted on the sun in late September, breaking the quiet conditions in a spectacular fashion. The 200,000 mile long filament ripped through the sun's atmosphere, the corona, leaving behind what looks like a canyon of fire. The glowing canyon traces the channel where magnetic fields held the filament aloft before the explosion. Visualizers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. combined two days of satellite data to create a short movie of this gigantic event on the sun.

In reality, the sun is not made of fire, but of something called plasma: particles so hot that their electrons have boiled off, creating a charged gas that is interwoven with magnetic fields. 

These images were captured on Sept. 29-30, 2013, by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, which constantly observes the sun in a variety of wavelengths. ​

What do bananas and fusion have in common?
13 Jan 2014
Often the food analogies applied to tokamaks centre around doughnuts, due to the shape of magnetic field that confines the hot fusion plasma. But as one delves deeper into the complicated world of gyrokinetics, the simplistic doughnut transforms into a more complex banana orbit in a journey from the ideal to the real world.

The premise of the tokamak is to construct a doughnut shaped magnetic field and then the plasma particles will merrily spiral around it for ever. Enter an uncomfortable reality of geometry; as you can see in the main image above, the magnets are closer together in the centre of the torus (the hole of the doughnut) than they are around the outside. This means the magnetic field is not uniform: it is stronger in the inside part of the ring.
This means that the helical path the particle follows is not symmetrical. A tighter turn on the high field (inner) side of the line and looser on the outside leads to a drift either upwards or downwards (depending on the direction of rotation). This is the beginning of our banana orbit, as shown in the projected cross-section at the left-hand side of the figure. As an example, let's follow a particle on the inside of the banana halfway up, gradually creeping downwards to trace the banana's inner edge.


Read the full article on the EFDA-JET website.

We must harness the power of the sun
12 Jan 2014
Last Friday's report from the United Nations confirms the huge danger from our continued dependence on fossil fuel. But one simple thing can break this dependence. It needs to be cheaper to produce non-carbon energy than it is by digging up coal, gas or oil. Once this happens, most of the coal, gas and oil will automatically be left undisturbed in the ground.

To make non-carbon energy become competitive is a major scientific challenge, not unlike the challenge of developing the atom bomb or sending a man to the moon. Science rose to those challenges because a clear goal and timetable were set and enough public money was provided for the research. These programmes had high political profile and public visibility. They attracted many of the best minds of the age.

The issue of climate change and energy is even more important and it needs the same treatment. In most countries, there is at present too little public spending on non-carbon energy research. Instead, we need a major international research effort, with a clear goal and a clear timetable.

Read the full article by David King and Richard Layard in The Observer.

Last artificial star in tokamak MAST before major upgrade
11 Jan 2014
 

Scientists at the UK's Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) have run final experiments on the MAST tokamak on Friday 27 September before starting a major overhaul of the device that will pave the way for a prototype fusion plant.

"It's a bittersweet moment for us because we are saying goodbye to the old machine but at the same time, we are already looking forward to the new one," said the CCFE spokesman Nick Holloway.

"At 4pm today, we will run the last plasmas and within minutes after that, engineers will move in to shut down the tokamak for the next 18 months. By Monday, the roof beams in the MAST machine area will have been taken off before the 25-tonne MAST vessel will be lifted on a big crane and moved to the assembly hall."

The £30m upgrade is set to make MAST (the Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak), a cutting edge facility. It will increase its power and enable testing technologies that will improve the knowledge base needed for the construction of ITER, but also to test systems for the DEMO prototype fusion power plant.
 

Read the full article at E&T Magazine.
 

Going to Mars via fusion power? Could be.
08 Jan 2014
​At first, it's hard to know whether to take the company known as Princeton Satellite Systems (PSS) seriously. For one thing, the PSS offices, a few rooms in a nondescript building in nondescript Plainsboro, N.J., right above the Sugar and Sunshine Bakery, don't exactly suggest the imminent conquest of the final frontier. The company's ambitions, by contrast, certainly do — but those sound so crazy that you have to wonder if they're serious. This team of a half-dozen or so scientists and engineers is determined to send human beings to Mars, launch robotic probes to the outer solar system, send missions to Alpha Centauri and more, and do it all with rockets powered by nuclear fusion.

Read more here.

First issue of "Quest" magazine details PPPL's strides toward fusion energy
07 Jan 2014
​Welcome to the premiere issue of "Quest," the annual magazine of the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). We are pleased to provide this news of our strides in advancing research into fusion energy and plasma science—two topics of vital interest to the United States and the world.

Read Quest here.

Neutron calibration completed at JET
06 Jan 2014
​Measuring the number of neutrons produced is one of the most basic yardsticks of success of a fusion experiment, yet it's surprisingly tricky to ensure your neutron detectors are calibrated correctly, says the leader of the team that has just finished calibrating JET's neutron diagnostic systems.

"The physics was only a part of the activity," says Project Leader, Dr Brian Syme. "Obtaining the neutron source, the safety issues and all the engineering developments associated with source handling were three quarters of the project!"

The process sounds simple enough — simply hold a radioactive source that produces a known number of neutrons at a set of known locations in the torus. From the detector counts you have an answer. However to get to that moment took the team three years of careful planning, including intensive neutronics calculations by colleagues in the Slovenian and Swedish associations.

Read more on the EFDA website.
 

China/US nuclear fusion reactor joint tests succeed
05 Jan 2014
​Chinese and American scientists have successfully conducted their first joint test of two fusion reactors.

The experiment on the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), a fusion energy reactor built by Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the DIII-D, a tokamak machine developed by General Atomics in the USA, found that it's feasible for a tokamak fully relying on bootstrap current and non-induced current to run in a high-performance and steady way, Anhui Daily reported, citing the Hefei-based institute.

Read more here.
 

Quest for the ultimate energy source, with Stephen O. Dean
04 Jan 2014
​Follow this link for a video interview with Stephen O. Dean, a 50-year fusion veteran and the founder of Fusion Power Associates.

14 immense scientific instruments you won't believe are real
03 Jan 2014
​Science is awesome. Physics is awesome! Here is a photo collection of huge and fantastical scientific experiments and machinery, including the European tokamak, JET.

Read more here.
 

How to reduce overhead costs of fusion power plants?
02 Jan 2014
​VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland's research results indicate that joint planning of the reactor structure and remote maintenance system can significantly improve the utilisation rates of future fusion power plants. Designing a reactor with the simplest structure possible can reduce maintenance periods, as well as building expenses and overhead costs. Since 1995, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has participated in two international projects aimed at building a full-scale fusion reactor and commercialising fusion as an energy source.

Read more here.

NASA goes PuFF
01 Jan 2014
​Fission-ignited fusion systems have been operational — in weapon form — since the 1950s. Leveraging insights gained from the weapons physics program, a Z-Pinch device could be used to ignite a thermonuclear deuterium trigger. The fusion neutrons will induce fission reaction in a surrounding uranium or thorium liner, releasing sufficient energy to further confine and heat the fusion plasma.

The combined energy release from fission and fusion would then be directed using a magnetic nozzle to produce useful thrust. This type of concept could provide the efficiency of open cycle fusion propulsion devices with the relative small size and simplicity of fission systems; and would provide a radical improvement in our ability to explore destinations across the solar system and beyond. This proposal is modified version of last year's proposal - addressing issues raised during that evaluation.

Read more and see the video on the Next Big Future website.

2013

Study recounts early, difficult years at Lawrence Livermore
31 Dec 2013
By Jeff Garberson

In the mid-1950s, the small, secret weapons laboratory that eventually became Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was more vulnerable than is commonly recognized to being marginalized or closed, according to a physicist who is studying the Laboratory's early years.
After three failed nuclear tests in the early to mid 1950s, there were recommendations in influential government circles that the young laboratory either be closed or reduced to a mere support role for Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico, the physicist found.
 
In another surprising finding, the reversal of fortune that brought success and recognition to the young Livermore laboratory in the late 1950s may have resulted from the illnesses of three of the laboratory's leaders, Ernest Lawrence, Edward Teller and Herbert York in 1954. They were laid up for months, forcing the responsibility of scientific leadership on to the shoulders of two brilliant, young physicists, John Foster and Harold Brown.
 
The originality of these two scientists and the teams they assembled led to nuclear weapon design changes that were soon demonstrated in successful explosive tests, which led to warheads small enough to fit on submarine-carried missiles. They altered the nuclear arsenal forever.

Read more at The Independent. 
PPPL-led workshop assesses crucial research for ITER
30 Dec 2013
John Greenwald

Leading experts from around the world gathered at the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in July to focus on a key issue for the development of fusion energy: Improving ways to predict and mitigate disruptions that can destroy magnetically confined plasmas that are needed for fusion reactions.

Confronting this challenge will be crucial for ITER. "The future of magnetic fusion research hangs on ITER being successful," said Amitava Bhattacharjee, head of the Theory Department at PPPL, which convened the 17-19 July workshop. "And ITER will need to avoid disruptions or mitigate them when they occur."

Workshop participants from left: PPPL Director Stewart Prager and Theory Head Amitava Bhattacharjee with David Campbell, director of plasma operations at ITER. (Photo by Elle Starkman/ PPPL Office of Communications)

Read more on PPPL website.

An airport for JET
29 Dec 2013
​When you take a flight on a jet aircraft you must go through a number of checkpoints in the airport before and after your flight — security, passport control and so on. The JET fusion experiment also has its own "airport" — the Beryllium Handling Facility: everything that goes in to and comes out of JET is processed there.

Calling it the Beryllium Handling Facility is perhaps inaccurate, as it is not only beryllium that is processed here. As well as the beryllium, which is toxic to humans, there are also radioactive components to be dealt with; either components that retain traces of radioactive tritium fuel, or that have been left radioactive by bombardment from neutrons emitted during fusion reactions. Within the three sealed workshops in the large assembly hall adjacent to the JET torus hall, components are inspected and cleaned, and waste is separated and bagged up ready for storage.
 
Plasma-Wall Interaction Physicist Dr Kalle Heinola refurbishing a tile diagnostic in the beryllium handling facility.
 
Read more on the EFDA website.

Improved insight into controlling the plasma in fusion experiments
26 Dec 2013
​A key issue for the development of fusion energy to generate electricity is the ability to confine the superhot, charged plasma gas that fuels fusion reactions in magnetic devices called tokamaks. This gas is subject to instabilities that cause it to leak from the magnetic fields and halt fusion reactions.

Now a recently developed imaging technique can help researchers improve their control of instabilities. The new technique, developed by physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), the University of California-Davis and General Atomics in San Diego, provides new insight into how the instabilities respond to externally applied magnetic fields.

This technique, called Electron Cyclotron Emission Imaging (ECEI) and successfully tested on the DIII-D tokamak at General Atomics, uses an array of detectors to produce a 2D profile of fluctuating electron temperatures within the plasma.


Read more at Phys.Org.

Image credit: Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion

How does tokamak fusion really sound?
25 Dec 2013
​Get an exclusive sample of the actual tokamak fusion sound here.

The quality stamp for Generation ITER
24 Dec 2013
​A new educational currency in the world of fusion becomes available this month with the launch of European Fusion Masters and Doctorate Certificates. The certificates are awarded by FuseNet, Europe's fusion education network, to recognize students with a high level of specialization in fusion, says Professor Niek Lopes Cardozo, chair of FuseNet: "Fusion is an exciting, interdisciplinary field. Our students [are] a group with special qualities and we want to recognize that. 'Fusion' is a quality brand; the certificate is a quality stamp."

The launch comes at a time when there is growing discussion of the preparation of Generation ITER. Writing in Science magazine, journalist Dan Clery drew attention to an "awkward gap" for fusion personnel that could eventuate between JET and ITER, and it is precisely this issue that FuseNet's new certification addresses.

"FuseNet plays an important role in preparing the ITER generation," says Duarte Borba, senior advisor to the EFDA leader. "A new generation of scientists and engineers are needed to operate ITER and to develop the science and technology required to build a fusion power plant."

Read more on EFDA website.
Director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT receives the 2013 Hannes Alfvén Prize
23 Dec 2013
Professor Miklos Porkolab, director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT and professor in the MIT's Department of Physics, received the 2013 Hannes Alfvén Prize at a ceremony held in Espoo (Helsinki), Finland on 1 July.

The honour, given annually by the European Physical Society (EPS) during their Conference on Plasma Physics, recognizes outstanding work in the field of plasma science and fusion research.

Porkolab was cited "for his seminal contributions to the physics of plasma waves and his key role in the development of fusion energy."

Read more here
South Korea seeks to develop key technologies for fusion energy
22 Dec 2013
The South Korean government reports that it will invest 151.6 billion won (EUR 103 million) in R&D for nuclear fusion this year.

 

The government will allocate 84.2 billion won in the ITER project, 32.7 billion won in research by the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR), 26.8 billion won in the nuclear fusion research institutions' projects, and 7.9 billion won in conducting basic nuclear fusion research and fostering personnel. The total budget is down 12 percent from that of last year.

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) said last week: "We intend to continue to develop and produce 10 major devices such as diagnosis machines, and at the same time develop key technologies required for commercializing nuclear fusion energy in the future."
Read more here
Tensions laid bare as Desertec exits industrial solar consortium
21 Dec 2013
A €400bn plan to power Europe using solar panels in North African deserts has been thrown into disarray after the non-profit foundation behind the original idea parted ways with the strategic arm set up to help deliver the ambitious project.

The Desertec Foundation today announced it will terminate its membership of Dii GmbH, which was established in 2009 to develop a rollout plan through to 2050 for the project, including work to identify sources of finance and developing a framework for investment.

Nuclear energy innovation is vital for slowing climate change
20 Dec 2013
In the last week, two news stories really captured the potential future for nuclear energy.  In The New York Times, Matthew Wald reported from Georgia, where construction crews are slowly building the first two new nuclear reactors in thirty years.

And National Geographic's Will Ferguson reported from Tennessee that engineers and scientists are taking core samples and mapping regional geology as part of the early planning stages of building the first small modular nuclear reactor in the world.

Both projects face unique challenges, yet they both represent the beginning of two potential nuclear paths for reducing climate-warming carbon emissions in the United States (and potentially the world).

Fusion energy: the 'great gamble' we have to take
19 Dec 2013
Billions have already been spent on fusion since the first experimental base opened in the former Soviet Union in the 1960s. Billions more is about to be spent on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in France, which is due to come into full operation in 2023. The aim of all this expenditure is to achieve the ultimate breakthrough — to create cheap energy from an environmentally-friendly and relatively stable source that will help to combat climate change while driving economic growth and improving Europe's competitiveness.

Read more here
'Nuclear pasta' in neutron stars may be new type of matter
18 Dec 2013
A rare state of matter dubbed "nuclear pasta" appears to exist only inside ultra-dense objects called neutron stars, astronomers say.

There, the nuclei of atoms get crammed together so tightly that they arrange themselves in patterns akin to pasta shapes — some in flat sheets like lasagna and others in spirals like fusilli. And these formations are likely responsible for limiting the maximum rotation speed of these stars, according to a new study.

"Such conditions are only reached in neutron stars, the most dense objects in the universe besides black holes," said astronomer José Pons of Alicante University in Spain.

Read more in the Huffington Post here
Fighting climate change with nuclear energy
17 Dec 2013
In the last week, two news stories really captured the potential future for nuclear energy. The New York Times' Matthew Wald reported from Georgia, where construction crews are slowly building the first two new nuclear reactors in thirty years. And National Geographic's Will Ferguson reported from Tennessee that engineers and scientists are taking core samples and mapping regional geology as part of the early planning stages of building the first small modular nuclear reactor in the world.

Both projects face unique challenges, yet they both represent the beginning of two potential nuclear paths for reducing climate-warming carbon emissions in the United States (and potentially the world).

Status of MIT fusion experiment warms up
15 Dec 2013
US Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana visited the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) on 14 June to learn about fusion research at MIT and the plight of MIT's tokamak, Alcator C-Mod.

That same day, PSFC Director Miklos Porkolab received a letter from the Department of Energy (DOE) informing him that its previous request for a "cold shutdown" of the C-Mod experimental facility be changed to a "warm shutdown" for the duration of fiscal year 2013. The change was in response to guidance DOE received from the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development as part of its fiscal year 2013 budget "reprogramming" activity.

The Center is exploring how best to prepare for retaining essential staff through the remainder of fiscal year 2013, with the prospect of possibly restarting operation of the fusion experiment in fiscal year 2014, should funds be appropriated by Congress.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/status-of-fusion-experiment-warms-up.html

Dying Herschel maps the fuel for new stars
14 Dec 2013
Something of a sad moment for infrared astronomy has come with the death of the European Space Agency's powerful space telescope Herschel.

Vital helium coolant has already run out. And when its thrusters' fuel tanks are finally exhausted on Monday, the giant eye on the sky will be switched off for ever.

But the work of the hugely successful instrument, with its 3.5 metre mirror, nearly 2 million km from Earth in the depths of space, continue to bring exciting discoveries.

The latest to be revealed is that the amount of cool hydrogen gas within our Milky Way galaxy that forms a reservoir that will fuel new stars has been hugely underestimated.

Super solar storm could leave Western nations without power "for months"
13 Dec 2013
A power outage could leave Western nations without electricity for months in the event of a strong geomagnetic storm, a new report claims, adding that it is "almost inevitable in the future" while the sun is approaching the peak of its solar cycle.

It is a known fact that solar activity is interconnected with the our planet's geomagnetic fields that are known to affect life on Earth, including widespread electrical disruptions.  Currently the Sun's activity is ramping up toward what is known as solar maximum as the peak of the 11-year solar cycle is expected in 2015.

According to the report, produced by Lloyd's in cooperation with Atmospheric and Environmental research (AER), super solar storms normally occur approximately every 150 years, the last being the Carrington Event in 1859—a geomagnetic storm that caused disruptions in telegraph lines all over the world and the brightest auroras. However that was long before people were so dependent on electricity.

Have fusion, will travel
12 Dec 2013
They seek one day to harness the same energy that powers the stars and thus to open the door to deep space exploration. Among the first goals of a spacecraft with such an engine would most possibly be human travel to Mars.

"Using existing rocket fuels, it's nearly impossible for humans to explore much beyond Earth," said lead researcher John Slough, a University of Washington research associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics. "We are hoping to give us a much more powerful source of energy in space that could eventually lead to making interplanetary travel commonplace."

The project is funded through NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program. Last month at a symposium, Slough and his team from MSNW, of which he is president, presented their mission analysis for a trip to Mars, along with detailed computer modeling and initial experimental results. Theirs was one of a handful of projects awarded a second round of funding last fall after already receiving phase-one money in a field of 15 projects chosen from more than 700 proposals.

Journey to the centre of the torus
11 Dec 2013
It sounds like a kind of gothic torture—being put in a large bucket and lowered into a 9m-deep hole at the centre of a huge machine. But it's all in a day's work for JET's inspection team as part of maintenance of JET's central magnet, the P1 solenoid.

The solenoid itself is made up of 1,440 turns of copper, separated into 14 "pancakes"—sections of coils stacked on top of each other. During the course of experiments these carry up to 60,000 amps and are subjected to huge magnetic forces, which cause them to shift around slightly. A set of spring-loaded keys pull the pancakes back into alignment, but over the course of thousands of plasma pulses you would expect these to wear and lose their precision.

IEA warns: world is not on track to limit temperature increase to 2°C
10 Dec 2013
Warning that the world is not on track to limit the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, the International Energy Agency (IEA) on 10 June urged governments to swiftly enact four energy policies that would keep climate goals alive without harming economic growth.
 
"Climate change has quite frankly slipped to the back burner of policy priorities. But the problem is not going away—quite the opposite," IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said in London at the launch of a World Energy Outlook Special Report, Redrawing the Energy-Climate Map, which highlights the need for intensive action before 2020.


At 25 Tore Supra is looking WESTward
09 Dec 2013
JET turns 30 this year, but its smaller cousin Tore Supra, in France, is close behind, celebrating its 25th anniversary this month. Tore Supra was conceived even before JET's construction was complete with a view to surpassing JET's performance in specific areas—for example, pulse length. And 25 years on, Tore Supra continues to look forward, with big plans to line it with tungsten (atomic symbol W) and install a divertor in the WEST (W Environment in a Steady-state Tokamak) Project.

The great leap forward that Tore Supra incorporated was superconducting magnets. This enabled a much longer pulse length; indeed Tore Supra set the record for the longest pulse in a large tokamak (six minutes) in 2003. While this is an achievement in itself, it also provides a vital tool for testing materials in a sustained plasma discharge. In particular, Tore Supra has been instrumental in exploring the active cooling of materials that face the plasma. Although it turned out that building a water-cooling system robust enough to weather the harsh environment of a tokamak has been a challenge, the knowledge gained will be vital for the long pulses of ITER.

Memoirs from Sandia's Z Machine
08 Dec 2013
The swan song of retiring Sandia physicist Tom Sanford is a technical, yet personal, memoir about experiments that changed the course of research at particle accelerators around the world.

His experiments in the mid-1990s made the Z accelerator a more effective candidate to achieve peacetime fusion energy—a goal still pursued by Z researchers today. Z also tests materials by subjecting them to the almost unimaginable conditions present in stars and nuclear weapons.

Sanford went on to share the 2005 Hannes Alfven Prize of the European Physical Society "for the remarkable achievements of the multi-filament Z-pinch development of recent years."

Marseille's MuCEM offers bridge between Mediterranean, Europe
07 Dec 2013
Architect Rudy Ricciotti, who designed the ITER Hedaquarters in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, makes headlines as his latest creation, the Musée des civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée (MuCem) is inaugurated today in Marseille by French president François Hollande. The Museum will open to the public on 7 June. (Photo Lisa Ricciotti)

Heinrich Rohrer, physicist, dies at 79: was first to "see" atoms
06 Dec 2013
Heinrich Rohrer, who shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing a microscope that made it possible to see individual atoms and move them around, an achievement that led to vastly faster computing and greatly advanced molecular biology, died on Thursday night or early Friday morning in Wollerau, Switzerland. He was 79.


 
Last steel seam on Wendelstein 7-X closed
05 Dec 2013
The last open seam on the steel outer cover of the Wendelstein 7-X fusion device was closed last week. The core of the research device is thus ready as is its basic skeleton and it can go into operation at the Greifswald branch institute of Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) in 2014.

The objective of fusion research is to derive energy from fusion of atomic nuclei, just as happens in the sun. To ignite the fusion fire, the hydrogen plasma fuel in a future power plant has to be confined in magnetic fields and heated to temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees. Wendelstein 7-X, the world's largest fusion device of the stellarator type when completed, is intended to investigate the suitability of this configuration for a power plant. With 70 large superconducting magnet coils in continuous operation it is then to produce a highly stable and thermally insulating magnetic cage confining the plasma.

Read more on the Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik (IPP) website at: http://www.ipp.mpg.de/ippcms/eng/presse/pi/05_13_pi.html
Fusion Day held at EPFL in Switzerland
04 Dec 2013
Friday 17 May was Fusion Day at the Swiss Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL. On the program: a conference to discuss the progress that is being made in fusion across the world, the roadmaps to the production of electricity from fusion, and a presentation on ITER.

Through its Center for Plasma Physics Research (CRPP), EPFL has made significant contributions to fusion research and is now a key member of the international fusion energy community.

Read more about the day's events here: http://actu.epfl.ch/news/epfl-fusion-day/

Senators oppose pending shutdown of MIT fusion experiment
03 Dec 2013
The plan to shut down a nuclear fusion experiment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a year and news that half the project's employees have received layoff notices has prompted objections from the state's two senators.

On Monday, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and William M. Cowan wrote a letter to Ernest Moniz, the MIT physicist who has just been confirmed as the secretary of the Department of Energy, urging him to restore funding to the experiment.

"We were troubled to learn that last week, as a result of budget uncertainty, MIT issued Reduction in Force notices to 35 scientists, engineers and technicians at the Alcator C-Mod facility," the senators wrote. "We are concerned that failing to provide funding for the facility will threaten American leadership in fusion energy research, harm the American economy in the long term, and hinder innovative efforts to develop clean, safe energy production through fusion."

Could 10 Tesla superconductors accelerate fusion development?
02 Dec 2013
A new generation of 10 tesla uperconductors could make Tokamak style nuclear fusion reactors work. It could make them affordable, smaller, maintainable and remove the plasma problems. The development time could be greatly reduced from 50 years to 10 to 20 years. A new design would also switch to FLIBE molten salt for lower costs.

The overnight cost of a fission power plant is ~ $4/W ($2/W for China).
• First of kind fusion plants at least $10-20/W
• Which implies that developing fusion reactors at ~GWe scale requires 10-20 G$ "per try" e.g. ITER
• Chance of fusion development significantly improved if net thermal/electrical power produced at ~5-10 x smaller i.e. ~ 500 MW thermal
And also, for a more technical overview, here: http://fire.pppl.gov/FPA12_Whyte_SS.pdf
PPPL recognized as first in NJ environmental stewardship
01 Dec 2013
The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has been recognized as the top facility in the state for environmental stewardship by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

PPPL is first among more than 750 companies, colleges and universities, hospitals and municipalities enrolled in the DEP's Environmental Stewardship program, in which facilities voluntarily monitor themselves to improve their sustainability programs. The program rates facilities in categories including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, green building certification and green purchasing. PPPL has actively improved its performance in each of those areas.

"The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, long a leader in the area of fusion energy research, is also a leader in the area of being a good steward of the environment," DEP Commissioner Bob Martin said. "I commend their efforts at making sound environmental practices that benefit their staff, their community and their state an integral part of the facility's daily operations."

In a ceremony at PPPL on May 20, DEP Assistant Commissioner Wolfgang Skacel said the lab's achievement in meeting the standards is "unique."

Why don't we have fusion power?
30 Nov 2013
Fusion energy, simply, is the exact opposite of fission energy, which comes from splitting an atom and is widely used to power nuclear plants and weapons. Fusion occurs constantly on our sun, which produces most of its energy via the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium. When nuclei fuse, they create a heavier nucleus and produce a little leftover energy in the process.

Fusion doesn't produce runaway chain reactions the way fission can, so there's no need to worry about meltdowns. Nor do fusion reactions produce the large amounts of dangerous radioactive waste that fission reactions do. That's why it's such a dreamy source of energy.

NIF provides backdrop for new Star Trek film
29 Nov 2013
The makers of "Star Trek: Into Darkness" went boldly where few have gone before when they visited Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world's largest and most energetic laser system. With the approval of the Department of Energy, this unique facility was utilized for the first time as a film set.

The filming was conducted in 2012 during a normal maintenance cycle for the facility. All additive costs were completely reimbursed by the film company so as to have no impact on NIF's experimental plan.

Just as the "Star Trek" genre envisions a brighter future for humanity through exploration of the universe, the mission of NIF is to explore physical realms that were previously unobtainable in a laboratory setting. With greater than 50 times more energy of previous lasers, NIF enables the nation to address scientific grand challenges in national security, fusion energy and fundamental science. Built as a centerpiece of the National Nuclear Security Administration's Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP), NIF provides data required for maintaining the nuclear deterrent without the need for underground testing.

Scotty (Simon Pegg, in red shirt) and Captain Kirk (Chris Pine, far right) in a scene from Start Trek: Into The Darkness that was shot at the National Ignition Facility, California

Slovenian crowds get to the heart of ITER and JET
28 Nov 2013
"Can we extract energy from water?" was the question that attracted a rapt crowd to Slovenia's Jozef Stefan Institute, during their recent Open Day. Answering the question was Dr Luka Snoj, fusion physicist at the Institute, who included as part of his lecture live video conferences with ITER and JET.

During a ten minute cross to ITER, Rem Haange, Head of the ITER Project Department, gave an update on progress at the construction site. Unfortunately in the live cross to JET, Dr George Sips, from Operations in the JET Department, managed only a smile before the connection crashed.



Fusion program at MIT is ending
27 Nov 2013
A long-running Massachusetts Institute of Technology research experiment that explores nuclear fusion as a possible energy source will shut down within a year, as its already diminished federal funding has been cut.
Miklos Porkolab, director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center where the project is housed, said that unless Congress decides to step in, 70 employees will be laid off, including physicists, technicians, engineers, and support staff. The shutdown will leave only two fusion experiments in the United States, one at Princeton University and the other at General Atomics, a company in San Diego.
Half of the workers have already received notice, Porkolab said. Most of the 20 doctoral students working on the Alcator C-Mod project will be able to complete their thesis work based on data they've already taken, but about five may need to switch projects. The effect of the shutdown will reverberate beyond MIT, which produces the most PhD scientists in the field of fusion and plasma research in the United States.

And the 2013 Fusion Technology Award goes to ...
26 Nov 2013
... Phil Heitzenroeder, who leads the Mechanical Engineering Division at the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).

The Fusion Technology Award, granted by the Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), recognizes outstanding contributions to research and development in the field of fusion technology.

Heitzenroeder has contributed to the design and construction of many of the world's major magnetic fusion facilities during a storied 40-year career at PPPL.

15-year-old addresses letter to ITER
25 Nov 2013
Tom Slattery, a 15-year-old from the UK, recently enjoyed a visit to the ITER site with his parents. Upon returning home, he addressed the following letter to ITER Communication (which he has given us permission to publish). We think you'll be impressed, like we were. Tom, we wish you all the best in your future career as a physicist!

After having visited the CERN laboratory, viewed the control labs and observed, from afar, the entrance to the tunnels, I felt that almost anything compared to that was bound to disappoint. ITER proved my assumption wrong. From the moment of arrival in the sunny car park, with its view to the distant snow-peaked Alps, I felt distinctly involved in the project at hand.

We drove up to the main site where we were given a once over of the structure of the future facility and also on the workings of nuclear fusion. My first thought was of the sheer size of the project. The area being cleared was enormous! There was machinery at work wherever you looked, earth being flattened, pipes laid, and, in the centre of it all, the construction of the main building itself.

We were driven round the expanse of the site, circling in on the future Tokamak Complex itself. At the moment, it is a huge, walled hole in the ground, punctuated by hundreds of concrete supports, each topped with a rubber plate and each taller than a person. Some of the struts are linear, but a large number of them are in a concentric pattern, marking the circumference of the fusion reactor. Next to the building works, on ground level, stands an industrial crane. When completed, the Tokamak Building will stand a few metres taller than this crane. I have visited the JET and MAST facilities in the Culham Centre for Fusion Research (CCFE), and I realise that ITER dwarfs both these reactors with ease.

The project itself feels like not just an advancement in science, but also common ground for countries involved all over the world, all with a common objective. It appears that now, in this age based on ever-depleting fuel sources, fusion presents the exciting prospect of a sustainable, almost unlimited energy source.

I also felt a sense of pride at the distance that science has come in recent years. As the investigation into particle physics zooms in on smaller and smaller scales, the machines required to perform the experiments become larger and more complicated. Undaunted by this, however, we have continued on and met those requirements, beginning yet another project to delve deeper into the micro world.

So how does this relate to me? The expected date (if all goes well) for First Plasma production is 2020, by which time I will be leaving university and will be ready to work. It is my ambition to work at this site as a physicist working on the experiment. That way I could feel part of something that will change the world that we live in.

Tom Slattery (age 15)

Creativity and the next generation
24 Nov 2013
Creativity—The Next Generation is a subject dear to the Fusion community's heart, and is also the 2013 theme of International Intellectual Property Day, which fell on 26 April 2013. The creativity of future scientists and engineers is vital to overcoming the challenges of achieving fusion but it can only be built on the knowledge that has been created by the previous generations of researchers. Good management of the vast amounts of intellectual property that has been created through JET's working life is crucial to future success.

"We have a very good system," says Keith Musgrave, head of Culham Publication Services, which designed and built the electronic database of JET's documents. "You can retrieve documents electronically in minutes, as far back as pre-1990. You can read the abstract before the full download, and request high resolution versions of the figures if needed."

Read more on the EFDA web site at: http://www.efda.org/2013/04/international-ip-day/
Stellarators open up a whole new 3D world for MAST
23 Nov 2013
Getting a complete picture of how plasmas perform in MAST has just become easier—thanks to expertise borrowed from a very different type of fusion machine.

The tokamak is not the only route to fusion power. Scientists around the world are looking at other methods of bringing the stars down to earth, and one of the main alternatives is known as a stellarator.

The stellarator, like the tokamak, uses magnetic fields to control hot plasmas in which fusion reactions can be created to produce energy.

Where it differs is in the way these fields are created. To confine the plasma, it is necessary to put a twist in the magnetic field. The tokamak drives an electric current through the plasma to produce this twist. With the stellarator, the twist is provided by twisted magnetic coils outside of the plasma. Stellarators have been around for longer than tokamaks, dating back to the early 1950s, but the challenges of building such intricate machines have slowed progress. However, the construction of the advanced W 7-X stellarator at Greifswald in Germany  is set to change all that, with assembly due for completion in 2015.

Read more on CCFE website at: http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/news_detail.aspx?id=199
One giant leap for mankind
22 Nov 2013
An idyllic hilltop setting in the Cadarache forest of Provence in the south of France has become the site of an ambitious attempt to harness the nuclear power of the sun and stars.

It is the place where 34 nations representing more than half the world's population have joined forces in the biggest scientific collaboration on the planet—only the International Space Station is bigger.

The international nuclear fusion project—known as Iter, meaning "the way" in Latin—is designed to demonstrate a new kind of nuclear reactor capable of producing unlimited supplies of cheap, clean, safe and sustainable electricity from atomic fusion.


10 years ago, 10 new countries
21 Nov 2013
Ten years ago a historic treaty was signed that would bring large changes to Europe's fusion program. The Treaty of Accession, signed on 16 April 2003, led to ten new countries joining the European Union (and at the same time the European Fusion Development Agreement EFDA, via the EURATOM treaty).

The addition of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia constituted the largest single addition of territory and population to the European Union. The addition of so many former Eastern Bloc countries, along with Bulgaria and Romania who joined four years later, had a major impact on EFDA in the ten years that followed.

Read more on the EFDA website: http://www.efda.org/2013/04/10-new-countries/
Plasma ring experiment offers new path for fusion power
20 Nov 2013
Physicists usually rely on electromagnetic fields to harness the power of plasma, the fourth state of matter, in fusion power experiments. But University of Missouri researchers have managed to create rings of plasma that can hold their shape without the use of outside electromagnetic fields—possibly paving the way for a new age of practical fusion power and leading to the creation of new energy storage devices.

Traditional efforts to achieve nuclear fusion have relied upon multi-billion-dollar fusion reactors, called tokamaks, which harness powerful electromagnetic fields to contain the super-heated plasmas resulting from the fusion reactions. The ability to create plasma with self-confining electromagnetic fields in the open air could eliminate the need for external electromagnetic fields in future fusion experiments, and with it, much of the expense.

The researchers created plasma rings about 15 centimeters in diameter that flew through the air across distances up to 60 centimeters. The rings lasted just 10 milliseconds, but reached temperatures greater than the sun's fiery fusion core at around 6600 to 7700 degrees K (6327 to 7427 degrees C). Plasma physicists suspect that magnetic fields are still involved—but that the plasma rings create their own.

European collaboration lays foundations for Japanese tokamak
19 Nov 2013
Clutching 2.5 metre-long spanners, three teams of dignitaries from Europe and Japan simultaneously tighten bolts on the cryostat base of JT60 Super-Advanced, thereby marking a significant milestone—this major component for the Japanese tokamak was designed and manufactured in Spain.

The base is a 250-ton structure made of low-cobalt stainless steel that will support the complete tokamak. Together with an upper section the base will form a vacuum enclosure around the vacuum vessel and coils, allowing them to be cooled to low temperatures required by JT60-SA's superconducting coils.

A challenge to America: Develop fusion power within a decade
18 Nov 2013
America's economy and security depend upon reliable sources of power. Over the next few decades, almost all of the power plants in the US will need to be replaced, and America's dependence on fossil fuels presents serious national security concerns. They sap our economy, exacerbate climate change, and constrict our foreign policy. Our newfound boom in natural gas and oil production will ease but not eliminate these underlying issues.


 
How will the ITER construction site evolve in 2013?
17 Nov 2013
How will the ITER construction site evolve in 2013? 

European Domestic Agency (F4E) video clips reporting on the evolution of the ITER construction site and the manufacturing of components are back! We have reworked their style and integrated interviews from different members of staff and contractors in order to give you more insight on the state of play.

Fusion-powered spaceships could send humans to Mars
16 Nov 2013
Human travel to Mars has long been the unachievable dangling carrot for space programs. Now, astronauts could be a step closer to our nearest planetary neighbor through a unique manipulation of nuclear fusion, the same energy that powers the sun and stars.

University of Washington researchers and scientists at a Redmond-based space-propulsion company are building components of a fusion-powered rocket aimed to clear many of the hurdles that block deep space travel, including long times in transit, exorbitant costs and health risks.

Getting a grip—remote handling at JET
15 Nov 2013
There's a new exhibit in EFDA's Fusion Expo, the Remote Handling Experience. Host Dr Phil Dooley gets one of the remote handling professionals from JET, Tim Powell, to try it out. After showing how the demo should be done, Tim takes us to see the real remote handling control room at JET.

Junior High students get a taste of daily life in a major nuclear research centre
14 Nov 2013
On 5-6 April, some 120 students from 12 neighbouring collèges (junior high schools) attended workshops on nuclear energy, safety and life sciences at CEA-Cadarache. The national operation known as CEA Jeunes ("CEA-Youth Day"), was established in 1994 to provide junior high students with a two-day experience of daily life at a major nuclear research centre.
New modular approach to house the extensive ITER diagnostic systems
13 Nov 2013
By Lynne Degitz, US ITER
When the ITER experimental fusion reactor begins operation in the 2020s, over 40 diagnostic tools will provide essential data to researchers seeking to understand plasma behavior and optimize fusion performance.

But before the ITER Tokamak is built, researchers need to determine an efficient way of fitting all of these tools into a limited number of shielded ports that will protect the delicate diagnostic hardware and other parts of the machine from neutron flux and intense heat. A port plug integration proposal developed with the US ITER diagnostics team has helped the international ITER collaboration arrive at a clever solution for safely housing all of the tokamak diagnostic devices.

Simulations uncover obstacle to harnessing laser-driven fusion
12 Nov 2013
Researchers at the Ohio State University are evaluating a two-stage process in which a pellet of fusion fuel is first crushed by lasers on all sides, shrinking the pellet to dozens of times its original size, followed by an ultra-intense burst of laser light to ignite a chain reaction. This two-stage approach is called Fast Ignition, and there are a few variants on the theme. In a recent paper, the Ohio State research group considered the long-discussed possibility of using a hollow cone to maintain a channel for the ultra-intense "ignitor pulse" to focus laser energy on the compressed pellet core.

Drawing on both experimental results from studies at the Titan Laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and massively-parallel computer simulations of the laser-target interaction performed at the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) in Columbus, Ohio, the research team found compelling evidence that the cone-guided approach to Fast Ignition has a serious flaw.
Delivery of 1st EU components at JT-60SA
11 Nov 2013
Watch a video of the celebration of the delivery of the first components from Europe and the start of assembly of the JT-60SA tokamak in Naka, Japan.

3D animation of ITER divertor cassette pre-loading
10 Nov 2013
Watch a video of the remote handling of an ITER divertor cassette as it is locked into its final position in the ITER vacuum vessel.

Record simulations conducted on Lawrence Livermore supercomputer
09 Nov 2013
Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have performed record simulations using all 1,572,864 cores of Sequoia, the largest supercomputer in the world. Sequoia, based on IBM BlueGene/Q architecture, is the first machine to exceed one million computational cores. It also is No. 2 on the list of the world's fastest supercomputers, operating at 16.3 petaflops (16.3 quadrillion floating point operations per second).

Coriolis effect can stabilize plasma in fusion reactors
08 Nov 2013
According to researchers at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) and the FOM Institute for fundamental energy research DIFFER, the Coriolis effect can help stabilize the plasma in nuclear fusion experiments. The same effect that causes wind vortices on the rotating Earth can help reach a better confinement of the plasma in a fusion reactor. 

Nuclear fusion is the "perfect energy source"
07 Nov 2013
By Steven Cowley
Director of the Culham Center for Fusion Energy
 
Until recently, fears of peak oil and dependence on Middle Eastern suppliers were the key factors shaping our energy policy, pushing governments to scramble for fossil fuel alternatives. Then came shale gas, tar sands, and other unconventional sources. Industry found ways to affordably extract fuel for decades to come. So many are now imagining an end to the energy crisis. That's a dangerous mistake.

First, even the most optimistic predictions leave our grandchildren exposed to an uncertain future. More immediately—and maybe more importantly—burning fossil fuels is the number one cause of global warming and its catastrophic consequences.

Fusion power: a 10 year plan to energy security
06 Nov 2013
The American Security Project has released a major report on how the US can accelerate the development of fusion power: "Fusion Power — A 10 Year Plan to Energy Security."

Fusion power holds great potential to meet America's long-term energy security needs. Fusion is clean, safe, secure and abundant. The report details several critical steps the US can take that will lead to demonstration-level fusion power within a decade.

Will Secretary Moniz put energy back into the Department of Energy?
05 Nov 2013
President Barack Obama has announced that he will nominate Dr. Ernest Moniz to head the US Department of Energy as Secretary.

Dr. Moniz served as Undersecretary of Energy from 1997 to 2001, overseeing all science and energy programs for DOE as well as the national laboratory system. He led a comprehensive review of the US nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship program, enhanced the science and technology of environmental cleanup, and was the DOE special negotiator for Russia initiatives, focusing on disposal of Soviet-era nuclear materials. Before that, Moniz was an Associate Director for Science in the Clinton White House from 1995 to 1997.

MIT experts: Nuclear exit would cost US environment, economy
04 Nov 2013
The United States would incur higher carbon dioxide emissions, a potentially steep rise in electricity prices and suffer a drop in gross domestic product if it were to abandon nuclear power.

That's the conclusion of two experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Their analytical essay is part of a package in the publication's new edition that presents arguments both for and against the continuation of nuclear.

Read more at: http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/mit-experts-nuclear-exit-would-cost-us-environment-economy/14226
20 times hotter than the Sun
03 Nov 2013
An 18-metre-tall machine is attempting to harness nuclear fusion, the reaction that powers the Sun, to create electricity. "By the end of the century, 30 per cent of global energy could be generated by nuclear fusion," says Francesco Romanelli, leader of the team of scientists operating the Joint European Torus (JET). Based in Culham, Oxfordshire, JET is a collaborative project between 26 European countries and, at 16mW, it's the continent's largest fusion device.

In October 2012 it put its electricity-generating experiments on hold to test the suitability of a new structural material -- a combination of beryllium and tungsten -- that can withstand temperatures "up to 20 times hotter than the Sun," says Romanelli. Since this new material proved far more resilient than the current carbon walls, it will now be included in the design of all large-scale commercial fusion devices.

Japan turns from nuclear fission to nuclear fusion
02 Nov 2013
All the world's nuclear power plants generate electricity by splitting atoms in a process known as nuclear fission.

But now, Japan is taking a leading role in developing production of electricity by means of nuclear fusion, the process that powers stars and the Sun. In this nuclear reaction, atomic nuclei collide at very high speed and join to form a new type of atomic nucleus, emitting vast amounts of heat and energy.

Scientists have been working to harness nuclear fusion as a next-generation energy source.

This week, Japanese and European scientists began assembling an advanced nuclear fusion testing facility northeast of Tokyo in Naka, Ibaraki Prefecture. The site is on Japan's Pacific coast 143 kilometers (89 miles) south of Fukushima Daiichi.

Read more here

A horse named Tokamak
01 Nov 2013
Tokamak emerged as a winter carnival hopeful when he made it three wins in a row at Eagle Farm.

He swept past the leaders at the 200m to beat I'llbetricked by two lengths with a half neck to Rock Home Late.
Lockwood, who has recovered from a stint in hospital, has been in great form since he moved his team from Tamworth to Brisbane late last year.

He trained in Sydney for many years and also worked closely with Smith who is now one of Brisbane's leading trainers after also moving from New Zealand and then Sydney.

Lockwood has 10 horses in Brisbane but Tokamak is the one he has held high hopes for as a possible winter carnival horse.

Mining helium on the Moon
31 Oct 2013
Experts gathered in Sydney last month for Australia's first space mining conference cited the moon as the first and most viable step in off-planet resource extraction.

Dr. Jonathan Clarke, a geologist and president of the Mars Society who spoke at the two-day Off-Earth Mining Forum held at the University of NSW, said the moon was the next frontier for the mining industry and that water was likely to be the key resource up for grabs.

According to Clarke, lunar water will be a vital resource for future space missions and exploration, as in additional to its conventional roles as a washing and drinking fluid, it can also be used as a propellant for space vehicles and converted into oxygen for human respiration.

'KSTAR Conference 2013' held to study nuclear fusion
30 Oct 2013
Organized by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and National Fusion Research Institute, the KSTAR Conference 2013 was held for two days from 26-27 February in Buyeo, South Chungcheong Province. The conference focused on the development of nuclear fusion research at home and abroad and research performance and results from KSTAR.

Representatives from JET and PPPL were present at this fifth edition of the annual conference.

One of the main themes of the presentation sessions was how to control plasma Edge Localized Modes (ELMs), including world-class research results from the 2012 KSTAR campaign.

© Eui-hyung Kim NFRI Korea
 

Potential benefits of inertial fusion energy justify continued R&D
29 Oct 2013
The potential benefits of successful development of an inertial confinement fusion-based energy technology justify investment in fusion energy research and development as part of the long-term US Energy R&D portfolio, says a new report from the National Research Council.

Although ignition of the fusion fuel has not yet been achieved, scientific and technological progress in inertial confinement fusion over the past decade has been substantial. Developing inertial fusion energy would require establishment of a national, coordinated, broad-based program, but achievement of ignition is a prerequisite.

Future US fusion research should keep options open, report concludes
27 Oct 2013
The United States should embark on a coordinated national research program into inertial confinement fusion—but only after researchers successfully demonstrate the scientific basis of the technology by creating a burning plasma in the laboratory, an expert panel assembled by the US National Academies recommends in a report released on 20 February.

That conclusion will pile the pressure on the National Ignition Facility (NIF), the $3.5 billion laser fusion project at the government's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. NIF, which was completed in 2009, was supposed to have achieved ignition—a burning plasma that produces at least as much energy as it consumes—by last year. Having missed that deadline, however, NIF is now awaiting a decision from Congress about its future funding. In the meantime, the US Department of Energy (DOE) asked the National Academies to explore what steps the United States should take to develop fusion power if NIF does eventually achieve ignition.

Read more at: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2013/02/future-us-fusion-research-should.html

A tour of plasma physics in downtown Cambridge
26 Oct 2013
Take a virtual tour through MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center thanks to a blog post on the American Physical Society site PhysicsCentral. The tour includes a stop at the Alcator C-Mod tokamak and the Levitated Dipole Experiment LDX.

Plasma meets nano at PPPL
23 Oct 2013
Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have launched a new effort to apply expertise in plasma to study and optimize the use of the hot, electrically charged gas as a tool for producing nanoparticles. This research aims to advance the understanding of plasma-based synthesis processes, and could lead to new methods for creating high-quality nanomaterials at relatively low cost.

Read more at: http://www.pppl.gov/news/2013/02/plasma-meets-nano-pppl-1

Nuclear fusion: an answer to China's energy problems?
22 Oct 2013
China could lead the way to a clean and boundless energy supply—if it can ever be made to work. Scientist Steven Cowley talks to online Chinese media Chinadialogue.
 

Alcator C-Mod remains operational
21 Oct 2013
MIT's tokamak, Alcator C-Mod, was faced with the threat of losing all of its federal funding throughout 2012. The loss of these funds, nearly the entire budget of C-Mod, would force the closure of the experiment, one of just three such devices in the U.S.

In September 2012, Congress passed a continuing resolution to provide six months of funding to C-Mod. The experiment is currently in "maintenance mode" rather than producing plasma, and scientists on the project are analyzing previously collected data. Members of the MIT Alcator C-Mod team hope to resume full operations once the FY 2013 budget is passed.
The scorpion's strategy: "catch and subdue"
20 Oct 2013
Adopting what they call "the scorpion's strategy," scientists at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility and colleagues at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory have successfully applied state-of-the-art, real-time control of microwave power from gyrotrons, along with mirror aiming of the power, to catch and subdue "tearing modes" that break up the magnetic surfaces of the tokamak.

Tearing modes in tokamak plasmas can form magnetic islands that destroy toroidal symmetry and leak the energy. Researchers have found that the islands can be removed ("subdued") by applying precisely aligned electron cyclotron current driven by high-power microwave sources (gyrotrons), in much the same way that scorpions catch and subdue their prey, lying in ambush and waiting for the prey to approach and then seizing it with pincers.

Read more here

ITER DDG Rem Haange: "No visible roadblock ahead"
19 Oct 2013
Two years ago, Remmelt Haange took up his duties as Deputy Director-General for the ITER Project Department. At ITER, the former Technical Director of the Wendelstein 7-X project faces familiar challenges, but also additional complexities.

Read more here

Steven Chu resigns as US Energy Secretary
18 Oct 2013
American physicist Steven Chu has resigned as US Energy Secretary, effective once President Barack Obama names a successor. "I would like to return to an academic life of teaching and research," Chu wrote in a lengthy letter to employees at the Department of Energy.

Chu will enter the record books as the longest-serving Secretary in DOE's 35-year history, and the first Nobel laureate to lead the sprawling, $27 billion department.

How the visit of astronomer Sir Bernard Lowell to the USSR in 1963 paved the way for ITER
17 Oct 2013
Mystery still surrounds the visit of the astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell to the Soviet Union in 1963. But his collaboration—and that of other British scientists—eased geopolitical tensions at the height of the Cold War and paved the way for today's global ITER fusion project, as Richard Corfield explains in this month's issue of Physics World.


How a particle tells time
16 Oct 2013
One of the first things you learn about quantum mechanics is that particles have a wavelength, and thus a frequency. If the particle is in rest, this frequency is the Compton frequency and proportional to the particles' rest mass. It appears in the wavefunction of the particle at rest as a phase. This means basically the particle oscillates, even if it doesn't move, with a frequency directly linked to its mass.

The precision of atomic clocks in use today relies on the precise measurement of transition frequencies between energy levels in atoms which serve as reference for an oscillator. But via the Compton wavelength, the mass of a (stable) particle is also a reference for an oscillator. Can one therefore use a single particle to measure the passing of time?

Read more here

Frozen bullets tame unruly edge plasmas in fusion experiment
15 Oct 2013
Using a frozen hydrogen machine gun installed on the DIII-D magnetic fusion plasma experiment in San Diego, researchers were able to fire millimetre-sized pellets of frozen hydrogen into the edge of a 20 million degree fusion plasma, dramatically reducing the size of periodic edge disturbances called ELMs, which are similar to solar flares at the surface of the sun.

"The rapid-fire frozen-pellet machine gun technology actually triggers many smaller disturbances, effectively short-circuiting the plasma's natural tendency to have less requent, but much larger outbursts," said Dr. Larry Baylor of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where the pellet gun was designed and built.

Unlocking one of fusion energy mysteries
14 Oct 2013
The research of a multi-institutional team from the U.S., Japan, and France, led by Predrag S. Krstic of the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences and Jean Paul Allain of Purdue University has answered the question of how the behavior of plasma -- the extremely hot gases of nuclear fusion -- can be controlled with ultra-thin lithium films on graphite walls lining thermonuclear magnetic fusion devices.

Born at ITER (almost)
13 Oct 2013
Little Janell Césaire, whose parents live in the small village of La Verdière, some 30 kilometres east of the ITER site, was in a hurry to be born. On the night of 10 November 2012, as her mother was being rushed to the maternity hospital in Aix, she decided it was time for her to see the light of day—RIGHT AWAY.

Her family just had the time to stop at the ITER roundabout, right in front of the ITER gates. An emergency called was placed to the local firemen and gendarmes from Saint-Paul-lez-Durance who arrived in time to safely deliver the baby.
Why not build a miniature fusion device in your lab?
12 Oct 2013
If you want to study nuclear fusion, why not build a miniature fusion device in your lab? Last week, first fusion reactions were produced in a device called a 'Fusor,' essentially designed and developed by students in the PlasmaLab@TU/e, a new facility operated for educational purposes by the TU/e plasma physics groups at Eindhoven University of Technology.

The picture shows the inside of the Fusor during an experiment last Friday where a fusion plasma produced almost a million neutrons per second, placing the device among a handful of best performing Fusors in the world.

We are looking through the window of a spherical vacuum chamber, containing a smaller sphere of glowing hot nickel wires ten centimeters across. A voltage of 55 kilovolts, applied to the nickel sphere, accelerates deuterium ions to energies high enough to allow fusion reactions to occur on collision with other deuterium ions or atoms. The high voltage is applied through a wire entering the Fusor from above, creating a bluish glow.

The promising results mean that, in parallel to its educational function, a research program will be set up around the Fusor in the group Science and Technology of Nuclear Fusion (TU/e department of Applied Physics).


Japan's stimulus package showers science with cash
11 Oct 2013
Three years ago, the picture for research funding in Japan looked bleak. As part of efforts to slash the national budget by ¥3 trillion (US$33.5 billion), the government, led by the Democratic Party of Japan, had proposed sweeping cuts to science, sparking protests from the country's most eminent researchers. Japan's flagship K supercomputer project narrowly escaped being shut down after auditors questioned whether Japan needed to host the world's fastest computer.

Fast-forward to 2013, and Shinzo Abe, head of the newly elected Liberal Democratic Party-led government, seems to have no such doubts. "Of course we must aim for number one," he told reporters after a tour of the supercomputer facility on 11 January.

DG Motojima on Russian TV "Spotlight"
09 Oct 2013
On the occasion of his December visit to Russia, ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima was the guest of Spotlight, the 26-minute daily interview program of Russia's international TV network Russia Today.

The night Santa Claus came to fusion
07 Oct 2013
Staffers at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) had more than the holidays to celebrate this past Christmas Eve. The date marked the 30th anniversary of a scientific milestone that saw the Laboratory's Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) produce its first plasma—the superhot, electrically charged gas that fuels fusion reactions as a potential source of clean and abundant energy. The dramatic 1982 event climaxed months of furious preparation to meet a year-end deadline and ushered in more than a decade of record-setting experiments on the big PPPL machine. But that first step was hardly easy.

Fields Medal Cedric Villani speaks of ITER on French national radio
03 Oct 2013
Fields Medal Cedric Villani, who visited the ITER site on Thursday 20 December, was the guest of national public radio France Inter "Interactiv" morning program. Asked about "his position on ITER," he described the project as "a decisive advance towards the decades-old dream of harnessing fusion energy," and "a great human endeavour for which I have great respect."
Susana Reyes receives 2012 Mary Jane Oestmann Professional Women's Achievement Award
02 Oct 2013
Susana Reyes, a former ITER staff member now working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), has been selected to receive the "2012 Mary Jane Oestmann Professional Women's Achievement Award" by the American Nuclear Society (ANS). The award, established in 1990 to recognize outstanding technical achievement by a woman in the nuclear industry, recognizes Reyes' leadership in developing detailed hazard and safety analyses for both inertial and magnetic fusion facilities, including the National Ignition Facility (NIF) and ITER, and future power reactors.
1,200 coal plants projected in 59 countries
30 Sep 2013
According to a World Resources Institute  study by Ailun Yang and Yiyun Cui, 1,199 new coal-fired plants, with a total installed capacity of 1,401,278 megawatts (MW), are being proposed globally. These projects are spread across 59 countries. China and India together account for 76 percent of the proposed
new coal power capacities.

Coal-fired power plants are the largest contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. In 2010, 61 countries produced coal and 104 countries consumed it. Global coal production reached 7,228.712 million tonnes that year and coal consumption reached 7,238.028 million tonnes. More than 60 percent of the coal consumed was used to generate power.

Germany faces multibillion-euro grid bill
29 Sep 2013
The massive expansion of Germany's electricity networks to cope with the country's transition away from nuclear to a high share of renewable energy will require investments of up to EUR 42.5 billion (USD 55.4 billion) by 2030, according to a newly released study.

Germany embarked on a path to low-carbon generation with high reliance on renewable energy following political decisions to phase out nuclear power, on which it had hitherto relied for around a quarter of its electricity, in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.

However, the country's existing grid is not up to the task of accepting a large share of electricity from solar and wind plants. According to the report by the German Energy Agency (Deutsche Energie-Agentur GmbH, or Dena), the country can expect to invest at least EUR 27.5 billion (USD 35.8 billion) and up to as much as EUR 42.5 billion (USD 55.4 billion) in the massive expansion and rebuilding program that its electricity distribution network will need.

Swiss TCV Tokamak celebrates 20th birthday
28 Sep 2013
Twenty years ago, EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) President B. Vittoz clicked on a virtual button that started the first real plasma in the TCV Tokamak. Since then, the counter never stopped increasing; more than 45,000 discharges have now been produced.

Fast and tricky to catch
25 Sep 2013
At the heart of deuterium-tritium fusion is the neutron. Each fusion event produces neutrons with an enormous amount of energy—14.1 megaelectron volts. This is a million times more energy than is produced by burning coal, and it manifests itself in the speed of the neutrons, which leave the reaction at about 50,000 kilometres per second.

All these lights!
24 Sep 2013
All these lights!

Scientists unveiled last week an unprecedented new look at our planet at night. A global composite image, constructed using cloud-free night images from a new NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite, shows the glow of natural and human-built phenomena across the planet in greater detail than ever before.

Many satellites are equipped to look at Earth during the day, when they can observe our planet fully illuminated by the Sun. With a new sensor aboard the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite launched last year, scientists now can observe Earth's atmosphere and surface during nighttime hours.

The new sensor, the day-night band of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), is sensitive enough to detect the nocturnal glow produced by Earth's atmosphere and the light from a single ship in the sea. Satellites in the US Defense Meteorological Satellite Program have been making observations with low-light sensors for 40 years. But the VIIRS day-night band can better detect and resolve Earth's night lights.

The new, higher resolution composite image of Earth at night was released at a news conference at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. This and other VIIRS day-night band images are providing researchers with valuable data for a wide variety of previously unseen or poorly seen events.

Read more here

Gazprom moves on helium demand
23 Sep 2013
Gazprom moves on helium demand

MOSCOW. Blimps long ago lost their value as a means of cargo transportation, military reconnaissance, or anti-aircraft defense; whilst the helium that fills them—more safely than the combustible hydrogen gas which brought down the Hindenburg in 1937—is sharply increasing its value in other applications. But the United States, which is currently producing most of the world's helium, is short of fresh supplies and low on stocks.

Read more here

Black hole jets might be molded by magnetism
22 Sep 2013
Black hole jets might be molded by magnetism
 
Even though black holes—by their definition and very nature—are the ultimate hoarders of the Universe (gathering and gobbling up matter and energy to the extent that not even light can escape their gravitational grip), they also often exhibit the odd behavior of flinging vast amounts of material away in the form of jets that erupt hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of light-years out into space. These jets contain superheated plasma that didn't make it past the black hole's event horizon, but rather got "spun up" by its powerful gravity and intense rotation and ended up getting shot outwards as if from an enormous cosmic cannon.
 
Visible-light Hubble image of the jet emitted by the 3-billion-solar-mass black hole at the heart of galaxy M87 (Feb. 1998) Credit: NASA/ESA and John Biretta (STScI/JHU)
MIT team sees the very first stars
21 Sep 2013
MIT team sees the very first stars

Researchers at MIT, the California Institute of Technology, and the University of California at San Diego have peered so far back in time that they've found matter that pre-dates the creation of heavy elements.

It's generally accepted that in the minutes following the Big Bang, protons and neutrons collided in nuclear fusion reactions to form hydrogen and helium. As the Universe cooled, fusion stopped generating these basic elements, leaving hydrogen as the main constituent of the Universe. Heavier elements, such as carbon and oxygen, formed when the first stars appeared.


National Ignition Facility seeks new cash
20 Sep 2013
National Ignition Facility seeks new cash

The US Congress had set the end of this year as the deadline for "ignition" at Livermore's giant National Ignition Facility (NIF). Now, the National Nuclear Security Agency in charge of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory says an extension is needed for NIF scientists to consider two very different and untried technical approaches.

Read more here

Cost of third-generation French nuclear plant rises again
19 Sep 2013
Cost of third-generation French nuclear plant rises again

French utility provider Electricité de France announced on 3 December that the anticipated cost of the Third Generation European Pressurized Reactor (EPR), under construction in Flamanville, northern France, will be in the range of EUR 8.5 billion, up EUR 5.2 billion from the original 2005 estimate.

Fusion images shine at awards
16 Sep 2013
Fascinating images of fusion have captured the judges' hearts in the 2012 German Prize for Science Photography — two of the five prizes were awarded for images from EFDA Associates' fusion experiments.

Volker Steger's panoramic picture of the inside of the ASDEX-Upgrade tokamak at the Max-Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching won the 4000 euro second prize in the single photo category.

The judges also awarded a special prize to Christian Lünig for his series of 6 black and white images of the Textor tokamak at Forschungszentrum Jülich and the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator at the Max-Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald. The full series of images can be found on the Photography Prize's website.

Poland's fusion program concentrating on Wendelstein 7-X
13 Sep 2013
Now successfully completed is the first of several cooperation projects that are to involve Poland's fusion research program in Wendelstein 7-X, the device under construction at Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald. Since 2006, technicians and engineers from the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow—specializing in superconductivity technology—have put in thousands of work hours to assemble Wendelstein 7-X. Along with other projects, Poland is thereby contributing a total of EUR 6.5 million to the fusion device. In reciprocation, Polish scientists have been made partners in the Wendelstein 7-X research program.

EU budget: Where the money goes
12 Sep 2013
There are various proposals for the size of the EU's next seven-year budget, beginning in 2014. The sum of EUR 973 billion euros (£782.5bn; $1,245bn) has been proposed by the European Council President, Herman Van Rompuy.

Stop the Parade!
10 Sep 2013
Should we be wasting our dwindling supply of helium on floating cartoon characters?

For Americans, the fourth Thursday in November can mean lots of things, usually some combination of food, family, and football. But before all that, there's the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The three-hour, 80-plus-year tradition starts at 9 a.m. and boasts 16 gigantic balloons. If you are ambitious and want to brave the cold on the night before, you can watch those balloons getting inflated. In addition to seeing Kermit the Frog or Spider-Man, you'll also witness the squandering of the global supply of helium.

1,000 underwater turbines deep in the Channel
07 Sep 2013
French utilities EDF and GDZ Suez are planning to install between 1,000 and 1,500 underwater turbines in the English Channel by 2030. The turbines would sit at the depth of 50 metres in "Raz Blanchard", one of the strongest tidal currents in Europe off the city of Cherbourg.

The expected electricity production is in the order of 1 Gigawatt, the equivalent of one nuclear reactor.

Watch a colossal loop of glowing red plasma shoot out from the sun
06 Sep 2013
The sun unleashed a monster eruption of super-hot plasma Friday in back-to-back solar storms captured on camera by a NASA spacecraft.

The giant sun eruption, called a solar prominence, occurred on 16 November at 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT), with another event flaring up four hours later. The prominence was so large, it expanded beyond the camera view of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which captured high-definition video of the solar eruption.

In the video, a colossal loop of glowing red plasma erupts from the lower left of the sun, arcing up and out of frame as it blasts away from the star.

ORNL debuts Titan supercomputer
31 Aug 2013
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory launched a new era of scientific supercomputing today with Titan, a system capable of churning through more than 20,000 trillion calculations each second—or 20 petaflops—by employing a family of processors called graphic processing units first created for computer gaming. Titan will be 10 times more powerful than ORNL's last world-leading system, Jaguar, while overcoming power and space limitations inherent in the previous generation of high-performance computers.

Too hot to handle
25 Aug 2013
Researchers around the world are working on an efficient, reliable way to contain the plasma used in fusion reactors, potentially bringing down the cost of this promising but technically elusive energy source.

Researchers at the University of Washington, claim that a new device, dubbed the "Mug Handle," could help contain and stabilize the plasma. Their findings were presented at the recent 24th annual Fusion Energy Conference in San Diego.

The new equipment looks like handles on a coffee mug—except they attach to a vessel containing a million-degree plasma that is literally too hot to handle.

The art of fusion science
22 Aug 2013
Keen photographer Julian Siret from Special Techniques Group at JET was surprised to find a sculpture inspired by his workplace at a hotel on a recent holiday, and snapped this striking image of the piece, by local Oxfordshire artist David Harber.

Fusion energy: one step closer to breaking even
18 Aug 2013
In the high-stakes race to realize fusion energy, a smaller lab may be putting the squeeze on the big boys. Worldwide efforts to harness fusion—the power source of the sun and stars—for energy on Earth currently focus on two multibillion-dollar facilities: the ITER fusion reactor in France and the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California. But other, cheaper approaches exist—and one of them may have a chance to be the first to reach "breakeven," a key milestone in which a process produces more energy than needed to trigger the fusion reaction.

Read more at: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/09/fusion-energy-breaking-even/