The third meeting of the ITER Council Working Group on Export Control, Peaceful Uses and Non-Proliferation (ECWG) took place in Washington, D.C. from 6-8 April 2009 under the chairmanship of Mike Roberts. Generously hosted by the United States (a big thank you to John Glowienka and his team) it was the first Council-level meeting to take place in the US since December 2003, adding extra significance to the location.
The ECWG devoted this meeting to a final review of the Terms of Reference and the proposals for an ITER Council Policy on Export Control and an ITER Council Policy on Peaceful Uses and Non-Proliferation. All three documents will be brought to the next ITER Council meeting. The ECWG also discussed the ITER Organization strategies to implement these Council policies. Technical discussions on export control lists and data classification systems for the ITER Organization and the Domestic Agencies were also held during the meeting. The next meeting is planned from 7-9 October 2009 in Cadarache.
It's done—the International Fusion Energy Research Centre in Rokkasho, Japan, is officially inaugurated: Toshio Okazaki, President of JAEA; Akinori Eto, Member of Congress; Shingo Mimura, Governor of the Aomori Prefecture; Pascal Garin, IFMIF/EVEDA Project Leader; Kenji Furukawa, Mayor of Rokkasho; and Kanji Fujiki, Director-General of the Research and Development Department at the Japanese Ministry of Science and Technology.
This Friday, 24 April, it is "Happy Friday" again for all ITER staff. So come by from 12.00 to 14.00, at the entrance of the Headquarters building, to meet, eat and enjoy. We are looking forward to seeing you there!
For two weeks now, the local TV channel Télé Locale Provence (TLP) has been broadcasting the first program of a series entitled "Une énergie pour notre avenir" (Energy for our future).
The series started off with "La fusion pour quoi faire?" (Fusion, what for?) which aired 36 times between Saturday 28 March and Friday 17 April and was also accessible through the TLP web site. The second program in the series, "La fusion, mode d'emploi" (Fusion, instructions for use), will begin to air on 1 May.
"La fusion pour quoi faire?" dealing with ITER and the issue of energy has drawn an exceptionally large audience. The program was broadcast simultaneously through hertzian airwaves and on the Terrestrial Digital Network (TNT). "Everywhere I go the people I meet talk to me about this program," says Sébastien Galaup, TLP programs director. "They want to know more. I tell them to be patient— there will be 8 to 10 programs in the whole series, each dealing with a specific aspect of the ITER Project."
Since the series began airing, the ITER link on the TLP web site has been accessed an average of 510 times a day. "This is an exceptional number, among the highest we've ever had," says Galaup.
The ITER programs will remain accessible on the Internet at http://www.tlp.fr/. DivX Web Player must be downloaded and installed to view the program (follow the link on the site's opening page).
Those of you who have had meetings at the Château de Cadarache over the last few months may have wondered what all the construction activity was about. Well, last Friday, after only four months of construction and despite adverse weather conditions, the CEA Technical Services, ITER Logistics and IT met for a final technical inspection of the new Fenière building, before its official opening.
This new building, which is a joint initiative between CEA and ITER, will host some of the large official meetings that take place at Cadarache. Its 270 square metres can accommodate up to 110 participants, and it has been equipped with cutting-edge video-conferencing equipment, wifi and other high-tech meeting equipment.
The building will be operational for the next ITER Council Advisory Committee meetings in May. ITER will have priority in reserving space there until our new, permanent building on the ITER site is ready for use.
More information on how to book this building for your future meetings will be published in Newsline soon!
Members of the ITER Fuelling Section took a four-day trip to the Southwest Institute of Physics (SWIP) in Chengdu, China, where they had intensive discussions on the ongoing design task for the ITER gas injection system and the glow discharge cleaning system: Tao Jiang (SWIP), Mingxu Wang (SWIP), Bo Li (SWIP), Xiangqin Zhang (ITER China), Bob Brewster (ITER), Min Wang (ITER China), So Maruyama (ITER) and Yu Yang (ITER). SWIP will soon install the test bed for transient measurement of the ITER gas injection and an electrode prototype for the discharge cleaning. This facility will provide valuable information to verify the design of both systems.
The ITER Planning & Scheduling Section has created a new website intended as the home for schedule reporting and for other useful information related to ITER planning and scheduling.
The website will be a resource for all ITER Organization and Domestic Agency staff from management to technical to planning and scheduling and which will facilitate the tracking and reporting of schedule progress.
From now on, getting information on the various procurements in the pipeline, their current status, trends, history, and names of the responsible officers is just a mouse click away. The idea for creating this new website was to "provide easy access to all schedule-related information, to make the scheduling process more visible and transparent and to fully engage all project staff in the scheduling effort," explains the Section Leader Steve Gilligan.
On 16 April, Luc Chatel, French Secretary of State in charge of Industry and Consumption (Ministry of Economy, Industry and Employment) and French government spokesperson, visited ITER.
Francois Gauché, Director of Agence Iter France, gave him a presentation on site construction and infrastructure related to the project and Pascale Amenc-Antoni, Special Advisor to the Director-General, gave a presentation about ITER.
Chatel also visited the CEA Cadarache facilities (Agate, Jules Horowitz, and CEDRA) where Serge Durand presented Cadarache activities.
The ITER European Domestic Agency "Fusion for Energy" (F4E) is organizing an information day on the European contribution to ITER heating and current drive power supplies and procurement strategy. The meeting will take place on 27 May 2009, at the F4E premises in Barcelona. Interested companies are welcome to participate.
Registration deadline: 15 May 2009.
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The Chairman of the Financial Audit Board, Hiroshi Nagano, handing over the summary report on the Financial Statements 2008 of the ITER Organization to the Director-General, Kaname Ikeda.
New signs have been put up on the premises of ITER Headquarters and the nearby roads in order to increase safety. Maximum speed is posted at 30 km/h, and the outlet on the public road RD952 has been improved with a small "roundabout" and signs.
On Monday 13 April, over 50 parents of pupils at the International School in Manosque met at the Château de Cadarache for an overview of the current situation at the school and projected future developments. After an introduction by ITER Director-General Kaname Ikeda, Jean-Paul Clément, Director of the International School, gave a detailed presentation on the curriculum, language sections, staffing levels and other aspects of the school's rapid evolution.
"Fusion power could be a source of energy that would have a greater impact on humankind than landing the first man on the Moon," says Roger Highfield, editor for the New Scientist in an article recently published on http://www.edge.org/.
On 16 April, a Vietnamese delegation including members of the Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and government representatives from Ha Nam came to visit the ITER site accompanied by members of the French Institut de Recherche et Développement. Gary Johnson, Deputy Director-General gave a presentation on the ITER Project.
On 17 April, the ITER Financial Audit Board ended their two-week audit at ITER with a visit to the ITER site. Thierry Brosseron from Agence Iter France gave them a guided tour and provided explanations on the status of worksite construction.
From left to right: Mr Sane, Mr Rigaux (ITER), Mrs Yabuuchi, Mr Nakajima, Mr Vasiliev, Mr Spoor (ITER), Mrs Zbaratskaya, Prof. Nagano, Mr Brosseron (AIF) , Mr Fiorentino (ITER), Mrs Digby-Grant (ITER), Mrs Peterson (ITER), Mr Kim, and Mrs Sun.
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