Well ahead of ITER operation, the ITER Organization plans to develop a plant simulator that integrates the two dozen plant systems that make up the installation. This integrated plant simulator will serve several purposes. By precisely mimicking the behaviour of the scientific installation in both normal and incidental conditions, it will help validate all foreseen operational scenarios. It will also support the development of operating procedures and instructions and, of course, serve as a training platform for future operators.The challenge is considerable: ITER is not just a tokamak but a complex combination of systems that are totally different in scope, size and nature. Some, like cryogenics or cooling water, are the size of a large industrial site and operate like one; others, like diagnostics, form a collection of small and nimble sensors and calculators more typical of a lab rather than a factory. These plant systems are governed by more than 200 individual plant instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. ITER can be compared to an aircraft carrier with systems as different as ship propulsion, radar, catapult, communications, and aviation that must all work in perfect coordination and harmony to ensure mission success. The task might appear daunting, but as Ryuji Yoshino—head of the Operation Management Section/Division and former plasma operator at the Japanese tokamak JT-60—explains, "we are not starting from scratch. We already have several individual simulators (for plasma, cryogenics, cooling water, etc.) and a few more are in development. The aim now is to have them all in one." Whether provided by industry or developed internally, the available individual simulators cover a wide range of technologies and speak different languages, each with its own tempo (some are designed to simulate microseconds events, while others replicate slow-evolving dynamics). The integrated plant simulator projected for ITER was discussed at length on 19-21 April in a workshop that gathered some 50 people from ITER, the Domestic Agencies and industry. "We are at the very beginning of a long process," says Yoshino. "At this stage, it is important to gather the available expertise, assess the time it will take to develop an integrated simulator and, eventually, provide a report for resource allocation." Based on experience from industry, it would take five to six years to develop an integrated simulator for an installation of ITER's scope and complexity. The consensus at the workshop was that it was now urgent to start the process in order to be ready for the initial phase of ITER operation. 

Click here to watch a 13-minute video on Chinese involvement in magnetic fusion research and ITER (in English).

Two of the largest tanks for the ITER cryoplant have been manufactured. The massive pieces of equipment, produced by Air Liquide and subcontractor Chart Ferox, each measure 35 metres x 4.5 metres and will require an exceptional convoy to be transported from the port of Marseille, Fos-sur-Mer, to the ITER construction site. Read the full story on the European Domestic Agency website.

In order to carry out the installation of the ITER in-vessel components—such as the diagnostic looms, in-vessel coils, blanket shield blocks and first-wall panels—the ITER Organization will require a set of specifically engineered tools. These tools will have to operate in limited space, respect challenging cleanliness specifications that restrict the type of lubricant or paint that can be used, and be capable of holding and positioning loads of around 5 tonnes with high accuracy. They will also have to be conceived in a modular fashion, to be assembled or dis-assembled as needed in the staging area.In December 2015, the ITER Organization signed a contract with CNIM Industrial Systems (Toulon, France) for the engineering design, manufacture and testing of the mechanical handling equipment as well as the platform-type staging required for access within the vessel. Contract scope also includes a trial and test facility that will serve to qualify the tools and to train future operators. On the basis of the ITER conceptual design and technical specifications, CNIM will propose solutions and develop the detailed design of all tools. See the gallery below for a description for some of the principal in-vessel assembly tools.

They're as thick and strong as railroad tracks and could easily carry the equivalent of four TGVs, two Eurostars or 15 steam locomotives. The steel rails that are being installed 43 metres above the basemat of the Assembly Hall are an essential part of the lifting system that will handle components weighing up to 1,500 tonnes. When rails are laid on the ground, they rest on a bed of crushed stone (the track ballast) that distributes the load of the passing trains. In the ITER Assembly Hall, the ballast role is played by massive steel elements (9.3 metres long, 20 tonnes) called railway beams.Resting on the vertical pillars of the Assembly Hall and running the entire length of the building, the railway beams form a perfectly smooth steel track upon which the rails can be affixed. It will take a few weeks to install the rails and fine tune their alignment. On Thursday 12 May, on the north side of the Assembly Hall, the first 18-metre length of rail was lifted, carefully deposited and fastened with heavy clips to the ledge formed by the railway beams. It will take a few weeks to install the rails and fine tune their alignment in time for the installation, beginning next month, of the girders and trolleys of the travelling crane. 

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.

--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.