Like cardinals assembled for a conclave they sat on narrow velvet-padded stalls facing each other, five rows on one side and five rows on the other. The vast chamber was heavy with history: seven centuries ago, at the time of the Avignon papacy (1309-1418), it had hosted emperors and kings and accommodated several assemblies of cardinals. But the men and women seated in the Conclave chamber of the Popes' Palace, last week in Avignon, were not cardinals—although many of them were quite eminent. Nor were they assembled to elect a new pontiff.   Who did what? The 2017 edition of the ITER Business Forum (IBF/2017) was organized by Agence ITER France with the support of ITER Organization and the Domestic Agencies, the F4E Industrial Liaison Officers (ILO) network and local authorities (the Avignon municipality, the département of Vaucluse and its development agency "Vaucluse Provence Attractivité," the Greater Avignon council, the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Region, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Vaucluse), AIFEN (the French Nuclear industry), Capenergies and Nuclear Valley from France. The participants were business and industry leaders from all over the world who had come to Avignon to meet with the ITER's main actors and hear updates on the project's progress, needs and forthcoming tenders.   For the first time in the ITER Business Forum's ten-year history the number of participants passed the 1,000 mark—1,005 to be precise. Close to 450 companies, laboratories and institutions from 25 countries were represented; 15 percent came from outside of Europe.   "The historical setting, the serenity that emanates from the palace's venerable stones lent extra resonance to the event," says Sabine Portier, the French industrial liaison officer for ITER (and co-organizer of the event, together with her colleague Philippe Olivier).   Anything one needed to know about ITER—how the project is organized, recent progress, what industrial opportunities are planned for the next months and years, ITER Organization expectations, etc.—was available through presentations, thematic sessions, business-to-business meetings and informal conversations.   Some 200 staff from the ITER Organization, Agence Iter France and the ITER Domestic Agencies were on hand to provide explanation as well as representatives of the project's main suppliers.   The "Avignon Papacy" There are two periods in what is called the "Avignon Papacy," when Popes resided in the southern French town, then a vassal city of the Holy See. During the first one, from 1309 to 1377, seven successive Popes, all "legitimate," decided for political reasons not to reside in Rome. In the second period, from 1378 to 1418, "rival Popes," one in Avignon, one in Rome, claimed authority over the Church ... thus creating what is known as the "Western Schism." The issue was eventually settled at the Council of Constance in 1414 and Popes returned to Rome, leaving behind in Avignon the spectacular architectural and artistic legacy of their century-long sojourn. Strong support from the industry is vital to the success of ITER," said Jacques Vayron, the director of Agence Iter-France, as he greeted participants on the morning of 29 March in the Conclave chamber. "This is a unique event where research and industry, large and small, can meet to foster the development of new partnerships."   And partnership is the key word for an endeavour that Bernard Bigot, Director-General of the ITER Organization, describes as "among the most ambitious mankind has ever attempted."   Bigot insisted on the necessity of collectively sharing the commitment to making ITER a sound investment "for all our Members and all our partners—business and industry included."   IBF has a lot of merits and one of them is to make the industrial dimension of ITER tangible to the local public—media cover the event, politicians visit the stands, and a "Foreign Investor Prize" is awarded...(1)   And although Avignon is used to hosting large cosmopolitan crowds—particularly during the world-famous theatre festival in July—the presence off-season of more than 1,000 people in and around the Popes' Palace in late March was an event in itself.   Palace employees, municipal police, waiters in sidewalk cafés ... all wished to know what the business forum was about and what ITER was for. When the usual explanations were provided (an artificial Sun, a uniquely complex machine, an unprecedented international collaboration ...) they were received with awe and incredulity.   "Well... there's no stopping progress," summarized a waiter on the Place de l'Horloge.   (1) The "Foreign Investor Prize" was awarded to Rolls Royce Nuclear Field Services, which provides remote handling industrial inspection for ITER.

With their slowly moving booms extended, concrete pumps are sometimes as gracious as ballet dancers. They definitely were on 24 March when concrete pouring began on Plot 7 of the second (above ground) storey of the bioshield. Plot 7 is a special section of the concrete fortress that surrounds the machine: it is where the large openings for the neutral beam injectors (and their curious ovoid penetrations) are located.   The operation, which lasted for the better part of the day, consisted in pouring some 240 cubic metres of self-compacting concrete through dense rebar in order to form a wall 5.4 metres high.   The circular structure of the bioshield now rises dramatically at the center of the Tokamak Complex. As concrete pouring proceeds, workers on the L1 level of the building are busy handling a bundle of 12-metre-long bars for the steel reinforcement of the neutral beam cell slab.

On 22 March, Director-General Bernard Bigot once again made a 24-hour visit to Washington D.C.—a "whirlwind tour" as he prefers, with no time wasted. The occasion was a request for a briefing on ITER progress by the US House Appropriations Committee, and specifically the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. Fortuitously, a second briefing could be added to the calendar: the newly confirmed US Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, graciously offered to make time for a 40-minute meeting with the Director-General to learn more about the ITER Project and the value of US participation. The two-hour briefing—or "closed hearing"—before the House Appropriations Subcommittee involved a panel of three: Director-General Bigot; Thom Mason, Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which hosts the US ITER Domestic Agency; and Stewart Prager of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.   On the Congressional side, Chairman Mike Simpson and Ranking Member Marcy Kaptur led the questioning, with 9 of the 13 Subcommittee members present during the discussion.   From the outset, a distinct difference was apparent from Bigot's most recent interactions with Members of the US Congress less than year ago: namely, that there was broad consensus that the ITER Project was back on track, with strong congratulations to the Director-General for his central role in the project turnaround.   A large part of the discussion focused on the value of US participation in the project, viewed from different angles. Members took note that the 9 percent US share of the ITER Project, in contrast with the 45 percent borne by Europe in addition to other Member contributions, made ITER a heavily leveraged US investment, in contrast to some other multilateral arrangements.   They also noted, in particular, that the vast bulk of US spending on the project remains in the US, with roughly $900 million paid so far to US companies for procurement of high-tech components and associated positive results in the form of expanding US industrial capacity, adding high-tech jobs, and the mutual benefit of collaboration with the global fusion science community.   A number of speakers noted the trend that "Big Science" projects are increasingly undertaken as shared multinational efforts to pool intellectual resources and leverage costs. In that context, the question arose regarding the potential adverse impact a US withdrawal from ITER might have on future scientific collaborations.   Other Members asked how the US compared to other countries as potential competitors, in the sense of parallel investment in domestic fusion R&D. Given recent proposals regarding potential budget cuts to US science programs, a key question for appropriations experts was clearly how to balance the benefits of domestic programs with international collaboration.   Later the same afternoon, as planned, Director-General Bigot headed to the Department of Energy to meet with Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Secretary Perry was keen to learn more about the ITER Project, which led, in Bernard Bigot's words, to an "excellent and open discussion." Coming from 14 years as Governor of Texas, often referred to as "the world's 12th largest economy," Secretary Perry was clearly well-versed in the strategic elements of energy security, science research, infrastructure investments, and long-range planning.   The discussion was correspondingly probing and thoughtful, with many of the same points covered as with the Congressional representatives. Director-General Bigot came away feeling grateful for time well-spent, committed as always to making ITER a sound investment for the US as for all ITER partners, and looking forward to a long and fruitful collaboration.

European contractor SIMIC S.p.A. (Italy) has finished the series production of toroidal field radial plates—the grooved stainless steel plates that are inserted between layers of superconductor in ITER's toroidal field magnets. In 2012, a consortium formed by European firms SIMIC and CNIM (France) has been awarded the contract for 70 radial plates needed by Europe for the production of ten toroidal field coils. With the realization of its 35th radial plate, SIMIC has now completed its share. The last 9 x 13 metre plate, weighing almost 10 tonnes, will be sent on to the European winding facility in La Spezia, Italy, where toroidal field coil manufacturing is underway.   The role of the radial plate is to hold the wound conductor in place. Each toroidal field coil contains five regular radial plates (with 12 grooves per side) and two side radial plates (with respectively 9 and 3 groves on the two sides). The plates require high-precision manufacturing and strict dimensional control to reach the tight specified tolerances. At SIMIC, an Italian firm specialized in the engineering and manufacturing of large machined components, a team of 70 people has been working for four years.   The grooves on both sides of the radial plate must perfectly match the trajectory of the conductor—a feat requiring high-precision manufacturing and strict dimensional control.  See a report and a video of the production process on the European Domestic Agency website.

The low, regular "purring" of the transformer was the sign that everything was fine. Electricity was gently flowing from the grid substation to the 400 kV ITER switchyard, and from there into one of the four 22 kV worksite transformers. Achieving the "energization" of the ITER worksite, albeit for less than one hour, was the culmination of two months of preparation in close coordination with the French transmission system operator RTE (Réseau de transport d'électricité).Technically under European responsibility, the final operation on 30 March—an ITER Council and European milestone—was long and painstaking and required both finesse and expertise. Procured by the US and manufactured in Korea, the transformer to be energized "had not seen power since undergoing factory acceptance tests in late 2014," explains Joël Hourtoule, the ITER Electrical Power Distribution Section Leader. "A transformer that stays idle for such a long time loses what we call its 'magnetic remanence.' When it is turned on again, the inrush of current can cause important mechanical stress that we need to control." The difficulty is to precisely adjust the relay settings of the circuit breakers that protect the transformer—one notch too low and the circuit breaker trips when it shouldn't; one notch too high and the fault current might damage the transformer. "Of course we have charts and curves and electronic measurements, but in this kind of situation nothing beats the experience of the Electrical Division's old hands," adds Joël. The first settings, "too conservative," caused the transformer to trip. The second, following an hour-long analysis of dozens of parameters, proved effective. The transformer's purring, hesitant at first, soon stabilized—as if the 150-tonne beast was expressing satisfaction. The energization procedure will be repeated before the summer for each of the three remaining 22 kV transformers of the steady state electrical network (SSEN); then, by the end of the year, the same operations will be conducted on the massive pulsed power electrical network (PPEN) transformers, procured by China. However, it will be another eight or nine months before parts of the ITER worksite and buildings can progressively draw power from the grid. For Joël Hourtoule and the "old hands" in his team, the energization of the 22 kV transformer marked the culmination of a full decade of work. "We began designing the system in 2007, defined the Procurement Arrangements, monitored fabrication, supervized the installation ... for engineers, it is a rare privilege and satisfaction to carry a project from inception to completion."

At the gorge of Mirabeau, 10 kilometres to the south of the ITER site, the wide Durance riverbed abruptly narrows into a gully less than 180 metres wide. Overlooking the left bank, a road leading to the village of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance was hewn from the rock. Despite recent adjustments, it still offers only limited space for passage.   And yet, this is the road every ITER convoy must travel in order to reach the ITER site.   In this picture, a segment of the ITER cryostat lower cylinder is embarking on the last leg of its journey—ITER is now only 30 minutes away.   To the left, the remnants of the old bridge, built in 1847, seem to stand guard over the passage.   Initially planned as an HEL convoy (for Highly Exceptional Load)—a massive and costly logistics operation—the six lower cylinder segments of the cryostat were all "downgraded" to CEL convoys (for Conventional Exceptional Load), a transport category that requires lighter technical assistance and a reduced security escort.   This was possible (with heavy technical adaptations) because the rather light components (39 tonnes) exceeded the typical CEL dimensions by only 65 centimetres in height.   We will soon have a story on how DAHER, the logistics service provider responsible for the transport of components from Fos-sur-Mer harbour to the ITER site, plans to bring down the anticipated number of HEL, in order to achieve "best value for money" while reducing the inconveniences of the ITER HEL convoys on local populations.

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.