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News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Image of the week | More cladding and a new message

    As the October sun sets on the ITER worksite, the cladding of the neutral beam power buildings takes on a golden hue. One after the other, each of the scientifi [...]

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  • Cryodistribution | Cold boxes 20 years in the making

    Twenty years—that is how long it took to design, manufacture and deliver the cold valve boxes that regulate the flow of cryogens to the tokamak's vacuum system. [...]

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  • Open Doors Day | Face to face with ITER immensity

    In October 2011, when ITER organized its first 'Open Doors Day,' there was little to show and much to leave to the public's imagination: the Poloidal Field [...]

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  • Fusion | Turning neutrons into electricity

    How will the power generated by nuclear fusion reactions be converted into electricity? That is not a question that ITER has been designed to answer explicitly, [...]

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  • Fusion world | JET completes a storied 40-year run

    In its final deuterium-tritium experimental campaign, Europe's JET tokamak device demonstrated plasma scenarios that are expected on ITER and future fusion powe [...]

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Of Interest

See archived entries

Jamie gets a slice of the True Reactor

A month and a half ago young Jamie Edwards, a student at Penwortham Priory Academy in Lancashire (UK), got his proverbial 15 minutes of world fame. In fact, he got much more than that: tens of thousands of web and newspaper articles, and radio and TV interviews that culminated in an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman (CBS), broadcast live from Broadway in New York ...

Upon his visit at ITER, Jamie received a very special gift—a sample of toroidal field coil niobium-tin conductor from ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima. (Click to view larger version...)
Upon his visit at ITER, Jamie received a very special gift—a sample of toroidal field coil niobium-tin conductor from ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima.
Jamie Edwards, the media trumpeted, had built a fusion reactor. As the 13 year old explained to Letterman, he did it "because it seemed cool ... I guess..." The fact that what Jamie had built in his school lab was not exactly a fusion reactor, but rather an ambitious experiment with deuterium gas and high voltage, didn't seem to bother the media—the title "13 year old builds fusion reactor" made for a great, and selling, headline.

Like David Letterman, many people had never heard of fusion or fusion reactors; now, thanks to planetary coverage of Jamie's success in the laboratory, they have.

As it takes determination, know-how, precision and ingenuity to build and operate a school-lab fusion experiment, Jamie certainly deserves to be congratulated. "We should not hold back from praising Jamie for a wonderful scientific experiment," said ITER neutron specialist Michael Loughlin, who was asked to comment on the teenager's story in a recent issue of the ITER Newsline.

To celebrate his success, and encourage Jamie's early interest in the field of fusion, the European Domestic Agency for ITER invited Jamie to visit the people building the largest fusion reactor in the world. Joining a group of 50 media representatives that spent two days at ITER Headquarters this week, the Lancashire student—who recently turned 14—did what all journalists and budding fusion students are supposed to do: he listened, asked questions and took notes. And due to his recent fame, he also gave a few interviews ...

As a spectacularly efficient fusion promoter and a member of the very generation that ITER and the fusion community are working for, Jamie was entitled to a very special gift—a sample of toroidal field coil niobium-tin conductor offered in person by ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima.

The sample will be a precious addition to his assortment of nuclear-related artefacts—it will sit on a shelf in his room amid a collection of early 20th century uranium glassware.


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