The international nuclear industry last week convened in Le Bourget, just outside Paris, for the World Nuclear Exhibition (WNE). Hundreds of exhibitors and many thousands of visitors participated in this second edition of the event—and this time the fusion community participated too, holding up the ITER flag. With a new and extravagant design, signaling that the project is "under construction," the ITER booth attracted a lot of attention.    During the opening ceremony, Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), noted that the event was being held in the same location as last December's historic COP21, at which 180 nations reached an agreement on addressing climate change. "Nuclear for climate" stickers spoke to the nuclear industry's potential to combat climate change.   However the challenges remain, as the event's president, Gérard Kottmann (also president of the French Nuclear Industry Exporters' Association, AIFEN) pointed out, asking "How can we make nuclear power "safer, cheaper, quicker, and more sustainable?" An additional challenge is political, he stressed, noting that Europe doesn't recognize nuclear power as "clean."   In recognition of her outstanding career in the nuclear field Francoise Flament (right) received this year's Women in Nuclear (WIN) Award from Dominique Mouillot, president of the gender equality initiative. "Clean" is one of the advantages of fusion energy, as the visitors to the ITER stand soon learned. Their attention was also drawn by a new feature, a virtual 3D tour of the ITER construction site—a spectacular experience that not many passers-by refused.   Big conferences also tend to add some limelight to the daily routine of business by recognizing outstanding people or unparalleled technical achievements. In a special ceremony on Tuesday 28 June, ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot handed out the prize for "innovation," one of four award categories (with nuclear safety, operational excellence and knowledge management).   Two days later, it was the turn of one of ITER's own to receive a prestigious award: Francoise Flament, head of the Procurement & Contract Division, received the WIN (Women in Energy) France 2016 prize for her outstanding career in the nuclear field.

High above the Tokamak Pit, dark cladding now covers the northeast facade of the Assembly Hall.   The cladding is temporary and will contribute to maintaining a controlled atmosphere inside the building during the installation of the assembly tooling.   Eventually, as the Tokamak Complex rises to meet the Assembly Hall, the cladding will be removed and the crane bay extended to allow the recently installed overhead cranes to travel in and out of both buildings.   While we wait for construction to advance to that point, a giant poster (25 x 50 m) has been installed that features a cutaway of the Tokamak ensconced in its concrete building.   The poster image is only 70 percent of the machine's actual size ─ it's sufficient, however, to give a sense of the exceptional dimensions of the Tokamak that will bring "the power of the Sun to Earth."  

There are presently twelve vice presidents in the Republic of Iran and on Friday, 1 July, two of them were at ITER. Ali Akbar Salehi, Vice President and head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and Sorena Sattari, Vice President for Science and Technology, led a delegation of a dozen nuclear specialists and government officials who spent the better part of the day visiting the ITER worksite and installations. Iran has for a few years publicly expressed its interest in fusion and the ITER Project. Specifically, the "Iran nuclear deal"─ signed last year between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany─included a pledge of support from the parties regarding Iran's interest in cooperating with ITER.   In August 2015, a few weeks after signing the agreement, Vice President Salehi was quoted saying: "This is my second time heading the Atomic Energy Organization (1). In my previous appointment, I made fusion our essential goal. It was given our highest priority because fusion is the future source of energy."   Iran has a longstanding fusion energy research program, which includes various approaches to fusion and the investigation of many applications of plasma technology.   In a September 2015 interview, Mahmood Ghoranneviss, who heads the Plasma Physics Research Center at Azad University and was part of the high-level delegation to ITER, gave some details on his country's fusion research program. "We have about 100 scientists who are working on fusion research in Iran," he said, "and there are over 150 PhD students working on plasma and fusion topics. Approximately 150 papers have been published by our graduate students in fusion."   On Friday—as the Iranian officials met with ITER management; toured the site; visited the Assembly Hall, the Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility and the Cryostat Workshop; and entered the virtual reality room—they connected for the first time with the reality of the project.   And they were both impressed and enthusiastic.   "The ITER Agreement is open to any nation that wishes to contribute to the project," said ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot as he explained the history and governance of the international collaboration. "All decisions regarding membership and collaboration are subject to the unanimous consent of the ITER Council, the governing body of the ITER Organization."   The visit, however, was in no way the start of an official discussion or process. Rather, it was a meaningful way for the Iranian officials and scientists to more fully understand the nature and scope of the project as well as the status of progress in manufacturing and construction.   (1) Ali Akbar Salehi's first mandate as head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) ran from July 2009 to January 2011, at which date he was appointed Foreign Minister. He was back at the helm of the AEOI in August 2013.

The installation of buried pipes for ITER's cooling water system is a first-phase assembly activity that must be carried out before other site infrastructure works for the cooling water system can be initiated.   While the design and procurement of the Component Cooling Water System (CCWS), the Chilled Water System (CHWS) and the Heat Rejection System (HRS)—including piping—is part of India's procurement responsibilities for ITER, the European Domestic Agency is responsible for the installation of the buried piping for these systems on the platform.   The work will fall under a general infrastructure contract signed between Europe and the consortium Spie Batignolles Group (Spie Batignolles TPCI /Valérian/ADF) for on-site electricity and hydraulic networks.   As the start date of on-site infrastructure works approaches, close collaboration among the different parties is essential in order to ensure the best possible coordination between the arrival of the material and the work schedule for buried installation on site. The first deliveries from India have already reached ITER, closely monitored by representatives of the Indian and European Domestic Agencies, the ITER logistics team, and European contractors.   Standing in front of cooling water pipes CCWS1 in the Indian factory. The installation of buried piping will begin this summer. In the same collaborative spirit, representatives of the European Domestic Agency, architect engineer ENGAGE and implementation contractor ADF were invited to visit India together in early June, welcomed by the Indian Domestic Agency and contractor Larsen & Toubro. The aim was to review the coherence of manufacturing, delivery and installation schedules; discuss the site work procedures and quality processes to be respected; and see fabrication first hand at the factory. The visit was productive for all and all deliveries corresponding to the first phase of site works are confirmed. The European contractors plan to start excavation works early this summer.

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

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.

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.