ITER featured at this year's TOFE Conference

The American Nuclear Society (ANS) topical meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) was held September 28-October 2 in San Francisco, California.

The meeting was attended by approximately 250 fusion scientists and engineers from around the world. The technical program included 272 presentations, with 136 oral presentations and 146 posters during the two poster sessions.

ITER was strongly represented at this year's meeting chaired by Jeff Latkowski from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The lead-off plenary talk by Stefano Chiocchio (on behalf of Norbert Holtkamp) gave an overview of the ITER Project. Michael Loughlin and Neill Taylor from the ITER Organization were also selected for plenary talks covering the ITER nuclear analysis strategy and the preliminary safety analysis, respectively. There were two oral sessions devoted to ITER and many posters. The meeting concluded with a special plenary session that featured talks by representatives of ITER Domestic Agencies from the US (Ned Sauthoff), Europe (Gianfranco Federici), Japan (Ryuji Yoshino), and Korea (Jung-Hoon Han).

In addition to ITER, the meeting covered a wide range of fusion science and technology topics including: structural and breeding materials, test blanket modules, nuclear analysis, environment and safety studies, next steps, DEMO and power plants. The meeting also had excellent participation from the inertial fusion energy community with talks on target design, fabrication and injection; lasers and heavy ion drivers; chambers and power plants. Work on the US High Average Power Laser (HAPL) Program and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Laser Inertial Fusion-Fission Energy (LIFE) project were featured. Participants were given the opportunity to tour the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. NIF construction is nearly complete and experiments to demonstration inertial confinement fusion ignition and burn will begin in 2010. The NIF tour was followed by the conference banquet at Wente Winery, a historic winery in Livermore.

In addition to the excellent technical program and local accommodations at the Stanford Court Hotel, participants enjoyed the pleasant weather, beautiful sights and fine dining offered by San Francisco.