Of Interest archive

The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) is an intergovernmental organization that brings together 43 countries to strengthen regional cooperation and dialogue through specific projects and initiatives that address inclusive and sustainable development, stability and integration in the Euro-Mediterranean area.

On 3 October in Barcelona, Spain, UfM and the European Union co-organized the Euro-Mediterranean Conference on Science Diplomacy, with the aim of highlighting the state of science diplomacy in the Mediterranean as well as obstacles and opportunities. More than 80 people from 22 countries attended, including scientists, diplomats, and research and innovation officials.

ITER, as an example of science diplomacy, was invited to take part. The ITER Project was represented by Marc Lachaise, director of Fusion for Energy (the European Union organization managing Europe's contribution to ITER), who participated in a panel discussion on research infrastructure. 

See the press release issued after the event here.

After bringing the magnetic coil systems of JT-60SA to superconducting temperatures in July 2023, energization—the process of running current through the magnets—has begun.

The toroidal field coil system (18 D-shaped coils) was put through a series of tests in August to verify that the system's quench detection and protection circuits were working optimally and that the current could be safely increased. Now, tests have begun on the tokamak's six ring-shaped equilibrium field coils, with limited voltages and currents at the start to avoid unnecessary risk.

Read more about JT-60SA commissioning activities on this website.

"The world we live in today [has] demands for clean energy outstripping supply. This has made clean sources of energy, such as fusion, of increasing interest to policymakers, investors and the wider public. In principle, fusion could generate four times more energy per kilogram of fuel than fission and nearly four million times more energy than burning oil and coal. The current level of international commitment to this clean source of energy is bringing us closer to fusion energy.

So begins the 800-page Fundamentals of Magnetic Fusion Technology published this month by the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA. The high-level text book is written for graduate students focusing on fusion technology, as well as for established plasma physicists and others working in the field and requiring a comprehensive overview. 

"Over the coming decades fusion R&D will shift from being science-driven and laboratory-based towards a technology-driven, industry-based venture. Significant innovation is and will be required [...]. Furthermore, the transition will focus on technologies and standards associated with the 'nuclearization of fusion' which has consequences for the required competences of the workforce. The main objective of this publication is to contribute to the consolidation and better exploitation of the achievements already reached in the past to tackle the present challenges in preparing the workforce in the different areas, with special attention to continuous professional development and life-long learning."

Download or order your copy from the IAEA website.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is an intergovernmental organization that designs, constructs and operates powerful ground-based observing facilities for astronomy. It currently operates three unique world class observing sites in the Atacama Desert region of Chile and is building the Extremely Large Telescope, which will be the largest optical/near-infrared telescope in the world. 

Professor Xavier Barcons, the Director General of ESO, was a guest on site at ITER on Friday 15 September. After exchanges with management and an extended tour of the worksite, he delivered a guest lecture to hundreds of members of the ITER community who were present in the amphitheatre or logged on remotely.

"What we can say, to start, is that we both work with plasmas, although many orders of magnitude apart in size," said ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi in his introduction of Professor Barcons. "And there are other things that we share—we are delivering research infrastructures at the frontier of science and technology, we are unique in our fields, and we face common challenges not only in engineering and technology ... but also in procurement, administration and staffing issues such as diversity. Beyond the pleasure of welcoming Professor Barcons today, we also hope to find areas where we can assist one another."

You can learn more about the European Southern Observatory here.

Do you want to be more involved in the promotion of fusion education in Europe? Do you have ideas on how to make the fusion scientific community bigger? Do you want to give input as a student to FuseNet, the European Fusion Education Network? 

The FuseNet Student Council is a separate advisory body in which Master and PhD students from member institutions across Europe convene and provide input to the Board of Governors. Members of the Student Council take part in Work Packages, and they are responsible for the organization of the FuseNet Master Event. The Student Council convenes predominantly online but also has at least one live meeting each year at the FuseNet PhD Event.

All current Master and PhD students affiliated with a FuseNet member institution are welcome to apply. Member terms are one year with the possibility of a one-year extension.

The deadline is 10 October 2023. See all information here.

After designating 2022 as the "International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD)," the United Nations (UN) General Assembly has now proclaimed 2024 to 2033 as the "International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (IDSSD)," acknowledging the imperative to "create bridges accross scientific disciplines and knowledge forms in order to address the complex and intricate challenges of our time."

Recognizing that developing countries face specific challenges in accessing new sciences and technologies, the resolution—proposed by Argentina, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Serbia, South Africa, Spain and Vietnam—proclaims the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development represents "a unique opportunity for humanity to use the critical role that sciences play in the pursuit of sustainable development in its three dimensions as one of the key means of implementation as well as in responding to the complex challenges of our time to ensure a safe and prosperous future for all."

The ITER Organization is one of many scientific organizations that supports the IYBSSD.

Read the UN declaration in English here.

The technical program of the 28th International Conference on Magnet Technology (MT-28) will kick off in Aix-en-Provence, France, on 11 September 2023. Interest has been high, with nearly 1,000 registered participants and extensive paper submissions. Plenary talks, topic sessions, short courses and an industrial exhibition are all on the schedule.

Registration is still available on line through Tuesday, 5 September.

For members of the press, please contact Sabina Griffith (sabina.griffith@iter.org) to be kept abreast of the planned press event.

JET, the Joint European Torus in Culham, Oxfordshire (UK), has just kicked off a third and final campaign in deuterium and tritium. The planned experiments, known as "DTE3," will run for seven weeks and focus on plasma science, materials science, and neutronics.

This campaign comes just 20 months after JET demonstrated sustained fusion over five seconds at high power and set a world record. In June, JET celebrated 40 years of science.

JET's research findings have been critical to planning at ITER, as well as to that of the UK's prototype fusion powerplant STEP, the European DEMO prototype fusion plant, and other national laboratory and private projects around the world.  

Repurposing and decomissioning activities on JET are scheduled to begin in 2024. 

See the announcement on the UKAEA/Culham Centre for Fusion Energy website.

For the third year in a row, the Department of Physics at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) has held its Fusion Energy Summer Camp for high school students.

19 participants aged 16 to 19 got to work as researchers and conduct experiments on DTU's small, and Scandinavia's only, NORTH tokamak. From early morning to late evening, from 30 July to 4 August, they followed lectures, practiced problem solving and programming in fusion energy and plasma physics, and participated in experiments, while also having fun and getting a taste of university life on campus.

The DTU Physics teams thanks the Novo Nordisk Foundation for its generous support in helping to inspire the young generation to consider an education in science and engineering and be part of the push to develop a sustainable future.

--Søren Bang Korsholm, Senior Scientist, and Alexander Simon Thrysøe, Scientist at DTU Physics.

Photo: Students are introduced to the NORdic Tokamak device (NORTH) that is enriching the physics and engineering programs at the Technical University of Denmark. Credit: Magnus Møller 

The transition to superconducting has been observed in the JT-60SA's central solenoid and toroidal field magnets, according to reporting by the team.

Superconductivity is a natural property of certain metals, alloys and ceramics when cooled below a defined "critical temperature." Below the critical temperature—which varies for each material—electrical resistance drops to zero, allowing these materials to carry large amounts of electrical current without losing energy.

JT-60SA's central solenoid is wound from niobium tin (Nb3Sn) cable-in-conduit conductor, which in the absence of any magnetic field becomes superconducting at about 18 K (-255°C). Early on 22 July the four modules of the central solenoid reached this temperature and the resistance of the magnets dropped to almost zero. The superconducting transition for the tokamak's 18 toroidal field coils and 6 equilibrium field coils (made from niobium titanium (NbTi) cable-in-conduit conductor) occurred at about 9 K (-264°C) on 24 July.

The JT-60SA tokamak is a joint program of fusion research and development agreed and co-financed by the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the government of Japan.

See the full report on this JT-60SA webpage.

The sixth and last episode of Season 2 of The ITER World is now available.

"Narrating A Giant" caps off the season by interviewing ITER Head of Communication Laban Coblentz. What public information strategy should be followed for this project that has so many complex layers of science, engineering, technology and politics? How to sustain interest in a project that spans decades? How to combat misconceptions? 

Listen to the latest episode directly on the ITER website or through Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, PodBean, Spotify, or Tune In.

Physicist Hartmut Zohm from Germany's Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) invites ITER's Head of Science, Alberto Loarte, to discuss the recent technical setbacks at ITER and plans for recovery. 

What are the specific problems and solutions? How will the setbacks affect full-power operation? Is scientific planning affected? Is the delay for repair also an opportunity in some areas to modify strategy? In what ways does ITER remain a "teaching" device?

The 17-minute talk "Nuclear Fusion: Problems at the ITER Research Project and Current Solutions" is available in English and German.

RAZOR, CGTN Europe's science and technology show, has published a 27-minute episode on the ITER Project.

Host Neil Cairns takes the viewer into some of the most interesting spaces of the ITER site, including the cathedral-like Tokamak pit, the gargantuan Assembly Hall and ITER Headquarters where staff from 35 nations are collaborating to "recreate the Sun's energy" on Earth. Through interviews with workers, managers and staff, the documentary captures the ambition of ITER and the gamechanging nature of fusion. "It's like when humans learned how to use fire," says one of the Chinese consortium members involved in machine assembly. "This is the second fire of humans in our history."

Watch "Are we any closer to recreating the Sun's energy at ITER?" on the RAZOR Science YouTube channel here.

The Fusion Industry Association has released its third annual survey of private fusion enterprises around the world.

The fusion industry continues to grow globally, with 13 new entrants, USD 1.4 billion (EUR 12.5 billion) in fresh funding, and nearly 1,000 direct jobs (+3,000 in the supply chain) created.

Private fusion initiatives exist in Australia (1), Canada (1), China (2), France (1), Israel (1), Italy (1), Germany (3), Japan (3), New Zealand (1), Sweden (1), the United Kingdom (3), and the United States (25).

These fusion companies are also benefitting at times from public money, as governments seek to spur innovation through public-private partnerships.

The companies participating in the survey spoke of their optimism about delivering fusion power to the grid, although "challenges remain."

You can download "The Global Fusion Industry in 2023" from this page on the Fusion Industry Association website.

Offering unsurpassed hardness, broad band optical transparency, and extremely high thermal conductivity, synthetic diamonds are the material of choice for 60 small windows that offer access to the machine for the high-frequency electromagnetic waves of ITER's electron cyclotron heating system, yet ensure a tight vacuum boundary.

The European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy, has procured 60 synthetic diamond discs through the German firm Diamond Materials. Now they must be polished, optically inspected, and finally joined with the diamond window unit through brazing.

See the original story on the Fusion for Energy website for all the details.

The second edition of the Fusion for Energy Contracting Professionals Roundtable took place at ITER Headquarters from 26 to 28 June 2023. The event, organized in collaboration with the International Nuclear Law Association (INLA) and the ITER Organization, focused on innovative legal thinking for successful fusion megaprojects.

During the three-day event, participants worked together to discuss and develop conditions for the successful delivery of fusion megaprojects. Themes such as contract strategies, forms of contract, nuclear liabilities, export control, insurance, competition law, public procurement law, intellectual property law and the regulation of fusion technologies were at the centre of the discussions. Approximately 300 participants from 20 countries took part.

See this report on the Fusion for Energy website.

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—has officially restarted operations, according to news posted to the JT-60SA website. 

On 30 May 2023, the team kicked off vacuum pumping operations to evacuate particles from the vacuum vessel and cryostat. Leak testing of the cryostat, cryostat helium pipes and vacuum vessel followed, before steps were taken to initiate magnet cooldown. The cooling of the JT-60SA magnets has been underway since 14 June and is proceeding steadily; you can follow progress on this webpage.

JT-60SA has been designed to support the operation of ITER by following a complementary research and development program, and to investigate how best to optimize the operation of fusion power plants that are built after ITER. Further details of its experimental program are explained in the JT-60SA Research Plan. During device commissioning in 2021, a short circuit at the terminals of one of the machine's largest poloidal field coils resulted in a period of assessment, analysis and repair. The restarting of the device is excellent news for the integrated project team and for the fusion community as a whole.

In the latest episode of ITER Stories (Season 2, Episode 5), hear what it's like to move from abroad for the ITER Project ... from the point of view of five ITER spouses.

In "ITER Spouses, A Journey of Transformation," Mansi, Joke, Moon-Jeong, Zijin and Pieter speak about their experiences moving to Provence to support their spouses and their voyage into the ITER World. From raising children, to learning the ropes of living in Provence, rebuilding identities, and taking life into their own hands, they share thoughts that may be interesting to families who are considering a move to ITER in the future, other expats, or the simply curious.

Listen to the latest episode directly on the ITER website or through Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, PodBean, Spotify, or Tune In.

The 2022 Report on Human Resources offers the most recent snapshot of the human element of ITER. Who is behind the engineering, the science, and the day-to-day management and administration of the world's largest research collaboration?

ITER Organization staff grew by 3.3% in 2022 over the preceding year, reaching 1,069 members. European staff members represent 69% of the 2022 total, while staff from the six other Members is distributed as follows: China 8.1%, India 2.4%, Japan 3.6%, Korea 6.1%, Russia 7.2% and the United States 3.4%. Staff joined the project from all ITER Members in 2022, with the Human Resources Department fielding 3,098 applications for 111 newcomer recruitments. Of total appointments in 2022, 12.3% were women.

Just over 77% of ITER staff members have an advanced degree (Master's, engineering degree, or PhD). Women represent 18.6% of the staff body, and hold 9% of management positions. The average age of all staff is 45.3 years old (43.9 years for women, and 45.6 years for men). In 2022, global turnover was 7%, with 73 departures.

Nearly 80% of staff choses to live in either Aix-en-Provence (pop. 147,000) or Manosque (pop. 23,000), two of the larger towns in the ITER environment, and 75% have at least one dependent child. Nearly 70% of staff were rewarded in 2022 for performance, and 19.3% were promoted through contract renewal.

See all this granular detail and more in the 2022 ITER Organization Report on Human Resources here.