Of Interest archive

On Friday, 20 August, the Homo-Science Marathon took place in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. The event was organized by Rosatom and the Znaniye Foundation for the purpose of discussing recent scientific accomplishments and building a bridge between fundamental and applied research.

The Marathon was opened by Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev. ITER Senior Advisor Alexander Alekseev presented the ITER fusion project and Lei Chen, one of the ITER-Monaco postdoctoral researchers, talked about her personal motivation in pursuing a career in fusion science.

See this link to the event: https://homo-science.ru/

The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) holds an annual art competition, "The Art of Fusion," so residents of the United Kingdom can display their artistic skills while highlighting the beauty and complexity of fusion science. This year, the theme of the contest shifts specifically to sustainability and the role of fusion as a sustainable source of energy. Entrants are encouraged to recycle materials for their artwork and get creative with the theme of sustainability.

The winners and runners-up of the competition will be invited to tour the Culham Science Centre in South Oxfordshire. The winners' artwork will be showcased on the UKAEA website and printed on postcards to be used at UKAEA events.

The competition opened on 22 July and will close on 16 September. Judging is split into three age categories: 7-12 years, 13-17 years, and 18 years and older. Entries are accepted via the UKAEA's website, and further details on the competition can be found there as well.

Are you currently a fusion or plasma physics master student, or are you starting next academic year? Looking for an opportunity to meet the community and learn more about this fascinating subject?

On 5 and 6 October 2021, FuseNet (the European Fusion Education Network) is organizing its first-ever Master Event. All master students in fusion-related fields are welcome to join the online event. The event will be interesting to both students who are just getting started in fusion, and to students who are graduating. In two days, you will learn about state-of-the-art fusion topics and the role of industry in interactive lectures.

During the casual social events you will meet fusion students from all over the world, and create a network of future colleagues.

To register, see this page.

The JT-60SA tokamak—a joint program of fusion research and development agreed and co-financed by the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the government of Japan—entered its integrated commissioning phase in late 2020, after a six-year project to modify and modernize the existing JT-60U tokamak at the Naka Fusion Institute in Japan.

During the step-by-step integrated commissioning process, the air was first evacuated from the vacuum vessel and surrounding cryostat before the device's superconducting magnets were slowly cooled to the temperature of 4 K (- 269 °C). Next, the vacuum vessel was "baked" to 200 °C to rid it of moisture and any possible residual contaminants. Finally the magnets were energized—first independently and then as a full group.

In March 2021, during the coil energization test of poloidal field coil EF1, feeder joints were damaged. Experts from both Japan and Europe investigated the cause of the damage and determined that the joints of the EF1 feeders needed to be reinforced with greater insulation.

Repairs will be carried out on the incriminated joints and others to prevent recurrence of the incident. Once the repairs and improvements are completed, EF1 will undergo further testing to determine that it can withstand even worst-case conditions and ensure that it is ready for operation.

JT-60SA integrated commissioning is expected to resume in February 2022.

Find out more on the JT-60SA website.

Thanks to a newly-installed actively-cooled exhaust, the German stellarator Wendelstein 7-X at IPP Greifswald will be able to maintain its fusion plasma for up to 30 minutes—a fusion milestone.

On Friday 18 June 2021, the last of a total of 60 divertor modules was installed in the Wendelstein 7-X plasma vessel. With this, an extremely important technical milestone was reached and, after 20 months of assembly time, all actively-cooled divertor target modules have now been successfully integrated. 

The current engineering shutdown will continue throughout the year so that a new and improved W7-X can restart its fusion experiments in 2022. According to the current plan, the assembly of the remaining vessel installations, including rework, can be completed by 9 December 2021.

Read the original story here.

On 29 July 2021, join the Head of the Japanese Domestic Agency, Makoto Sugimoto, and ITER Chief Strategist, Takayoshi Omae, for a Japanese-language webinar on the ITER Project. 

The webinar is open to all and is free of charge. The panelists will introduce nuclear fusion, give the latest updates on the ITER Project, and take questions from participants.

See all information at this link.

The European Fusion Education Network, FuseNet, is organizing the second annual European Fusion Teacher Day on 1 October 2021. Open to all secondary school science and physics teachers in Europe, the virtual event aims to introduce educators to nuclear fusion and exchange about how the subject can be taught in school. The ultimate goal is to increase exposure of students to the subject at the secondary level in order to spark interest and enthusiasm in the field.

Because the event is open to educators across Europe, the half-day program begins with local sessions via Zoom. After the local sessions, participants will come together for a global livestream from 15.00-17.00 CEST before returning to a local follow-up session. The ITER Organization is one of the featured speakers during the global livestream; other representatives of the international fusion community will be announced soon. 

Participation is free and registration is open now. See this page to learn more.

Three hundred teachers participated in last year's event. Read more about the first European Fusion Teacher Day here.

IAEA Technical Meeting on Fusion Data Processing, Validation and Analysis will take place from 30 November to 3 December 2021 in Chengdu, China, with both in-person and remote participation foreseen.

The objective of the meeting is to provide a forum for discussing topics of relevance to fusion data processing, validation and analysis with a view to addressing the needs of next-step fusion devices such as ITER. The validation and analysis of experimental data obtained from diagnostics used to characterize fusion plasmas are crucial for a knowledge-based understanding of the physical processes governing the dynamics of these plasmas. The meeting aims, in particular, at fostering discussions about research and development advancements in these topics made in the current major fusion confinement devices. A special focus will be placed upon data analysis for ITER and DEMO, with particular attention paid to opportunities for the use of Artificial Intelligence for control activities.

More details, including how to contribute, can be found here.

An article published in History and Technology on 1 June 2021 explores ITER's history of diplomatic negotiations. A project of such magnitude, author Anna Åberg points out, requires collaboration and compromise as people from vastly different backgrounds come together to create a complex machine.

"This is true not only for the top-level politicians," Åberg writes, "[but also] all the way down to the work site itself where German welders may work under Indian supervision following French nuclear-safety protocols."

Collaboration within ITER has changed over time as the project becomes more complex and participants face a variety of new challenges. The realization of the ITER machine is only possible when everyone is willing to compromise and come together to solve evolving issues.

Read the original article here.

A high-performance fusion regime called Super-H mode is being used on the DIII-D tokamak (US) to test methods to control heat and particle flow at the edge of the fusion plasma. 

The theoretical model for Super-H Mode was developed several years ago by researchers at General Atomics (which operates DIII-D for the US Department of Energy's Office of Science), the University of York (UK), and the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (UK). It works by increasing temperature and pressure in the outer region of the plasma, called the pedestal. Higher pressures and temperatures at the pedestal lead to much higher fusion performance in the core.

The new approach uses advanced control algorithms and optimized methods of cooling the edge of the plasma without excessively degrading reactions in the core. The results identify a pathway for increased performance at ITER and the fusion power plants that will follow.

Read the full press release here.

-- Image courtesy of General Atomics.

The ITER Organization has added a permanent virtual visit option to its visit program.

Developed in reply to the COVID-19 pandemic and the necessary restrictions to in-person visiting, the virtual visit now co-exists alongside other options, including individual and group visits, on the ITER webpage dedicated to visitors.

The virtual visit option will remain available to the public even after COVID-related restrictions end, allowing fusion aficionados from around the globe a chance to better appreciate the progress on the ITER construction site.

What can you expect from a virtual visit? In approximately 90 minutes, the ITER visit team will introduce you to the world of fusion, before explaining the ITER Project in detail. Highlights include a video shot by drone and a tour of all the main buildings on site through immersive 360° images.  

If you are interested in booking a virtual visit of ITER, please see the Visits page of the ITER website and click on "Virtual Visits." The calendar indicates the open slots for group or individual virtual visits in either English or French.  

Come and join us. We look forward to welcoming you (virtually) to ITER!

--The ITER Visits team

Four Danish universities have collaborated to create DANfusion, a government-funded consortium allowing researchers to work together and share resources as they study fusion physics and engineering. DANfusion includes research groups from the Technical University of Denmark, Aarhus University, Aalborg University, and the University of Southern Denmark.

Through DANfusion funding, researchers will have the opportunity to visit national and international fusion experiments to gain greater knowledge in their field, and to accumulate hands-on experience through fusion-relevant summer schools and resources like the Technical University of Denmark's NORTH tokamak.

The overarching goal of DANfusion is to strengthen the bond among national scientific communities through shared knowledge and united research efforts.

Read the EUROfusion announcement here.

The Stellar Energy Foundation and co-host Fusion Industry Association are holding a webinar, entitled "Mobilizing Investment into Fusion Energy," on 24 June 2021.

The event features Ralph Izzo, the Chairman, President and CEO of Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (PSEG), and Paul Dabbar, former Under Secretary for Science with the U.S. Department of Energy. The moderator, Chris Gadomski, is the Head of Research, Nuclear at BloombergNEF.

The webinar will take place from 22:00-23:00 CEST. There is no fee to attend, but please contact kfortini@stellarenergyfoundation.org to be added to the invitation database.

Read the original event announcement here.

A video recording of the webinar is available here.

The ITER Organization plans a regular, one-week ITER International School for young scientists and engineers around a specific theme. The School locations alternate between France and one of the seven ITER Members. 

Before the global pandemic made travel and gathering impossible, a 2020 ITER International School, co-organized with Aix-Marseille University (France), was planned on the topic of "The Impact and Consequences of Energetic Particles in Fusion Plasmas." First pushed back to 2021, the decision has now been made to hold this School in summer 2023. More details will be provided on the re-scheduled IIS 2020 in autumn 2022 on this ITER webpage.

In the interim, a summer 2022 ITER International School will be hosted by the US Burning Plasma Organization. Further details will be published about IIS 2022 on the ITER website in autumn 2021.

The 29th biennial IAEA Fusion Energy Conference will be held in London in October 2023, hosted by the UK Atomic Energy Authority's Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. Further details on the event will be shared as information becomes available.

Watch the original announcement by UKAEA here. 

A virtual symposium on fusion research will take place on Friday, 18 June, from 1:30-6:00 p.m. CEST.

This event is organized by PhD students Richelle Boone (Leiden University) and Michiel Bron (Maastricht University), and aims to explore fusion from the perspectives of social sciences and the humanities. The symposium will feature seven sessions with experts presenting the historical, philosophical, sociological, economic and political aspects of fusion.

The symposium is free to attend, but registration is required.

See the event page here.

(P.S. The event was recorded and can be viewed back through this link.)

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) publishes a quarterly Bulletin dedicated to educating readers on nuclear technology and its peaceful uses. The latest volume of the Bulletin explores the possibilities of fusion.

The Bulletin contains thirteen articles that explain the mechanics of fusion and highlight a few of the fusion projects currently developing around the world, including the ITER project. An article written by Wolfgang Picot, entitled "ITER: The World's Largest Fusion Experiment," offers a snapshot of ITER's progress in making fusion a reality.

The IAEA Bulletin, both current and past, is free to browse online. Find the latest issue on fusion here.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, supported by the European Fusion Education Network FuseNet, is about to release a new textbook on fusion technology. The publication is a follow-up to the IAEA textbook on fusion physics, which is consultable here. 

All Bachelor, Masters and Doctoral students of fusion are invited to submit a cover design proposal, in a Book Cover Contest that ends on Wednesday 30 June 2021. 

See all information and instructions on the FuseNet website.

Organized every two years by CEA Cadarache (France) and the Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN (Poland), the PhDiaFusion Summer School of Plasma Diagnostics is designed for graduate students and their tutors in the spirit of a "master and apprentice" approach.

The next edition will be held from 20 to 24 September 2021 on the topic of "Neutron diagnostics development for ITER, DEMO and IFMIF-DONES." 

For all information visit this page.

The 28th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2020) kicks off in just one week on 10 May 2021. For anyone who would like to join as an observer, you must register through this link by 7 May 2021. (Please note: observers can watch all presentations, but will not have access to the Q&A feature of the virtual platform or be able to interact.)

The biennial Fusion Energy Conference is the premier gathering for the international fusion science community. It fosters the exchange of scientific and technical results in nuclear fusion research and development and provides a forum for the discussion of key physics and technology issues as well as innovative concepts of direct relevance to the use of nuclear fusion as a future source of energy.

The 28th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference will be held as a virtual web congress from 10 to 15 May 2021. Organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it is supported by the Government of France through the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and the ITER Organization.

To learn more about the six-day event, please visit the conference website: https://fec2020.fr/