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Pictures from the Fusion Energy Conference in Japan

24 Oct 2016 - Julie Marcillat
For six days last week in Kyoto, the world fusion community came together at the Fusion Energy Conference—an important rendezvous on the calendar of researchers, engineers, industry representatives, students, and policy makers.
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All questions on ITER could also be answered at the ITER stand, where videos, brochures, and a virtual reality tour of the ITER construction site were on offer.
The 26th edition was hosted by the Government of Japan and organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in cooperation with the Japanese National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS).
 
In his opening address, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano reminded the audience of the supportive role that the IAEA has played historically as "godparent" to the ITER Project, and of continuous efforts to serve the worldwide fusion and plasma physics community through the publication of Nuclear Fusion, the organization of conferences and specialized workshops, and the coordination of research in fusion technology. 
 
"To make fusion energy production a reality, enormous scientific and technical challenges still need to be overcome. But I have faith in the ingenuity of human beings and the ability of brilliant scientists and engineers to overcome even the most daunting technological hurdles. In the coming years, we will see increased efforts to bring fusion energy on an industrial, power-plant scale within our reach. I am confident that they will be successful."
 
The ITER Organization was represented by Director-General Bernard Bigot, who brought the most recent news of project progress to a large audience on the first day of the conference, and by a group of ITER scientists and engineers (see photos). All questions on ITER could also be answered at the ITER stand, where videos, brochures, and a virtual reality tour of the ITER construction site were on offer.

The next Fusion Energy Conference will be held in 2018 in India.

From the hands of IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, EUROfusion researcher Sebastian Brezinsek receives the IAEA's 2016 Nuclear Fusion Journal Prize. He is the lead author of a paper describing experiments run on the JET tokamak that confirm the use of beryllium and tungsten as plasma-facing materials for the nuclear operation phase at ITER. (Photo courtesy of NIFS, Japan)
Fusion researcher and Princeton University professor Robert Goldston has been awarded the IAEA 2015 Nuclear Fusion Journal Prize for a paper presenting a new model for estimating the width of the scrape-off layer, the hot plasma exhausted from the closed magnetic surfaces in tokamaks. (During the 2016 IAEA Fusion Energy Conference in Japan, the Nuclear Fusion Journal Award was presented to the 2015 and 2016 winners.)
With the exception of Riccardo Roccella from the Analysis Section (far left) and Julie Marcillat from Communication (second from right) the largest contingent of participants to the Fusion Energy Conference came from ITER's Science & Operations Department, led by David Campbell (far right). In order, beginning second from left: Peter de Vries, Sun Hee Kim, Alberto Loarte, Simon Pinches, Joe Snipes, Michael Lehnen, and Mireille Schneider.
In the main hall of Kyoto's International Conference Center, Alberto Loarte gives a presentation titled "Evaluation of tungsten transport and concentration control in ITER scenarios." Alberto leads ITER's Confinement & Modelling Section.
Former ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima stopped by the ITER stand, where a highly realistic Lego model of the ITER Tokamak was on display. Two students from Kyoto University (Konishi Laboratory, Institute of Advanced Energy) are behind this prowess—Taishi Sugiyama and Kaishi Sakane.
Two years' worth of progress in fusion science and technology are on display in poster sessions at each biennial Fusion Energy Conference. Here, with the head of Science & Operations Department David Campbell (middle) is former colleague Alan Costley, who used to head the ITER Diagnostics Division (right).
The six-day conference attracted researchers from 40 countries and more than 1,000 visitors. Poster sessions were organized in parallel to the presentations given in the main hall.
A new attraction at ITER conference stands is the Oculus Rift experience, which allows the viewer to travel in the place of a drone above the ITER worksite and to hone in on specific construction projects and buildings. Waiting in line is former Council Chair Hideyuki Takatsu.
In keeping with an ancestral Japanese tradition known as ''kagami biraki'' ("barrel breaking ceremony"), representatives of the world fusion community break the lid of a sake barrel with a wooden mallet as a promise of harmony and good fortune. Left to right: Boris Kutchev, Kurchatov Institute (Russia); Joaquín Sánchez, CIEMAT (Spain) and chair of the F4E Governing Board; Osamu Motojima, ITER Director-General Emeritus; Yuanxi Wan, former chair of the ITER STAC; Keeman Kim, NFRI (Korea); Sibylle Günter, IPP (Germany); Bernard Bigot, ITER Director-General; Predhiman Krishan Kaw, founder and former director of IPR (India); Nobuyasu Abe, Commissioner AEC (Japan); Yukiya Amano, Director General, IAEA; Yasuhiko Takeiri, NIFS (Japan); Alain Bécoulet, IRFM (France); Kijung Jung, ITER Korea; Masahiro Mori, QST (Japan); Stewart Prager, PPPL (USA); Tony Donné, EUROfusion; and Jiangang Li, ASIPP (China).
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