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The virtual tour of ITER construction has been updated with 360° photos from January 2023. Enter the main ITER plant buildings or the machine assembly theatre to see what has changed since the last update in April 2022.

Accessible from the home page of the ITER website (yellow icon) or by clicking on the link below.

Click here to enter the latest 360° ITER virtual tour.

The Governing Board of Fusion for Energy (F4E), the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy, has appointed Marc Lachaise as Director.

Carlos Alejaldre, Chair of the F4E Governing Board, thanked all delegates for their cooperation and congratulated Marc Lachaise on their behalf. "We look forward to working with you in order to lead Europe's contribution to ITER, and its participation in various fusion projects aiming to demonstrate the full potential of this energy source."

Trained in engineering, Marc Lachaise worked for 27 years as part of the French EDF Group (Électricité de France), where most recently he was Deputy Head of Department for Nuclear Procurement (2015), then Contract Manager Director of the EDF Group (2018), and Supply Chain Control Director in the newly formed assurance function for the EDF New Build nuclear projects (2021).

"It is an honour to be appointed Director of Fusion for Energy and I promise to lead this organization and its staff with commitment, integrity and a truly collaborative spirit. During my career I have worked in the field of energy, building experience on management, supply chain, and big nuclear projects. I'm ready to offer my expertise to the fusion community because I'm truly convinced of its potential. The responsibility bestowed on me is also an opportunity to honour Europe's contribution to ITER, empower teams, and collaborate with our partners to deliver ITER."

Read the full report on the Fusion for Energy website.

"Science and technology have the potential to solve some of the most critical issues of our time, to improve our lives, and to inspire our curiosity about the world around us." 

This conviction, from the Franklin Institute's mission statement, animated the production of the Institute's new six-part documentary series, "The Road to 2050," where some of the world's top innovators take the viewer on a journey of exploration into the future, covering everything from environmental challenges to off-world expansion and the exciting possibilities of jetpacks and teleportation. 

Shira Tabachnikoff, ITER's Internal & Stakeholder Relations Manager, features in part two of the docuseries: "Act 2: Energy of the Future." Moving toward a world that is increasingly electrified, new, cleaner sources of energy will be needed. Fusion is one of the potential solutions, and minds around the world are working to make it happen. 

Access the full series on YouTube at this address.

(The 200-year-old Franklin Institute is a centre for science education and development located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.)

To stimulate excellence in fusion research, the European Fusion Education Network FuseNet awards the Master Thesis Prize to students who write outstanding Master's theses that were carried out and completed across Europe. The prizes serve as an acknowledgement of the excellent and important research that is carried out by fusion students.

The application period has been extended to 10 February 2023. To nominate your best students of the past year, please fill out the submission form at this address. 

For more information about the Master Thesis Prize 2022, see the FuseNet website.

Worth watching: two recent TEDx talks featuring fusion and ITER.

In the first, "Why should we make a star on Earth?" EUROfusion's Tony Donné, explains the advantages of fusion--a baseload source clean and safe energy, power dense, requiring only small amounts of fuel and a small footprint for reactor construction, and without any long-lived radioactive waste. He touches on recent accomplishments in the field and the large numbers of industrial spinoffs that have already resulted from investment in fusion research.

In the second, "Entering the Fusion Energy Delivery Era," JET's Head of Operations Joe Milnes outlines a bright future for fusion, taking the audience from recent milestones in the fusion world to the turbo-charged current state of play and his hope for a fusion future, where all countries can build reactors based on fuels that are accessible to all. What are the breakthrough technologies that will help us access fusion electricity? What challenges still remain?

The 28th International Conference on Magnet Technology (MT-28) will be hosted by the ITER Organization and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in Aix-en-Provence, France, during the week of 10 to 15 September 2023. 

The MT-28 Local Organizing Committee (LOC) team has planned a dynamic student program to make MT-28 a moment to remember for all participating students. There are grant opportunities, short courses and workshops, best paper awards, recruitment and career opportunities, and fun extracurricular events.

See this page for a description of all student events and opportunities.

And a reminder to all: abstract submission is open now through 20 February 2023.

In Fusion Power: How Close Are We?, Simon Mundy from the Financial Times introduces his viewers to the quest for fusion energy, described as "one of the hottest and most controversial topics within the push for clean energy."

Through interviews with scientists, engineers and investors in the United Kingdom, the United States and France—including Director-General Pietro Barabaschi, Head of Science Tim Luce, and Postdoctoral Fellow Valentina Nikolaeva from ITER—Mundy captures the growing enthusiasm for the potential of fusion energy, as national labs reach milestones and investment in the field from both public and private sources is growing.

Watch the 28-minute documentary here.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) organizes regular webinars focusing on the latest breakthroughs and landmark achievements announced in fusion R&D. The series aims to give an overview and put in perspective ground-breaking results, to understand how such progress brings fusion energy closer to realization.

In the next episode (#4) on 19 January 2023, experts from the US DOE Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) National Ignition Facility (NIF) will present results from its recent historic fusion breakthrough—scientific energy gain for the first time in a fusion experiment.

Follow this link to register.

The Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear (IPFN) invites applications for its Doctoral Program in Plasma Science and Engineering, APPLAuSE, from eligible candidates by 3 February 2023 (for a September 2023 start, full time).

Successful applicants, up to a maximum of three, will benefit from a four-year doctoral scholarship supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. The official language of APPLAuSE is English.

For more information and to apply, see this IPFN webpage.

The European Commission had established a panel of independent high-level experts to evaluate the Euratom research program comprising fission and fusion research. The findings, which were recently published, are more than a pat on the back for Europe's fusion research activities, especially with regard to EUROfusion's flagship device the Joint European Torus (JET) and the Roadmap to the realisation of fusion energy.

The panel's findings place JET firmly at the heart of Europe's fusion research activities and underline its role as the device that is crucial to the developments at ITER. JET is currently the largest operating tokamak in Europe and also the only machine that is capable of carrying out experiments using the deuterium-tritium (D-T) fuel. And because D-T is the fuel of choice for a fusion reactor, results from the upcoming D-T experiments in JET will provide the know-how pertinent to ITER experiments. In addition, JET's ITER-like plasma-facing wall, its tungsten divertors, and its highly sophisticated remote-handling systems are all features that will lend invaluable knowledge and experience relevant to ITER.

Another facet the panel recognized as important is the European Fusion Roadmap which looks to steer the fusion program from being solely laboratory-based and science-driven to include industry and technology in its fold. The roadmap, which has been put together with inputs from all the EUROfusion consortium members, looks to solidify collaboration with industry in areas ranging from standardization of parts to plant design and integration and materials development. Also featuring prominently in the Fusion Roadmap is the role of JET as the testing ground for ITER operation— an aspect that is completely aligned with the panel's findings.

The independent panel's evaluation strongly backs this endorsement stating that "the decision to extend the use of JET to support the development of ITER was not only correct but essential." It further goes on to say that "high priority should be given to keeping JET operating until the design for ITER has been finalized and ITER has been successfully commissioned."

Read the original story at EUROfusion.