Of Interest archive

What do you get when you mix three parts fusion doctoral training, two measures of outreach, many parts of information, and a final jigger of fun?

A Glass of Seawater!—a self-described "light, informative, and inspiring podcast all about the field of fusion energy research as seen through the eyes of PhD students from FUSION CDT*."

Now in its third season, the podcast takes on all kinds of nuclear fusion/plasma physics topics from, as the organizers are happy to admit, a "glass half full" perspective. What is incredibly hard—but also exciting—about research in fusion today? Which challenges have been overcome and which remain? What are the latest developments from the world of materials science? And—last but not least—how much fuel for the fusion reaction can be taken from a glass of seawater?

Tune in to Andrew, Bhavin, William and their many guests here, or look up A Glass of Seawater! on Facebook and Twitter.

Also, see this recent write-up from EUROfusion.

Five UK universities—Durham University, University of Liverpool, University of Manchester, University of Oxford, University of York—have joined within FUSION CDT to offer doctoral training in fusion-relevant disciplines such as plasma physics, material science, nuclear physics, technology, laser physics, and instrumentation. Learn more here.

Established in December 1893, the monthly L'Usine nouvelle ("The New Factory") is one of the oldest French trade magazines. To celebrate its 125th anniversary, the magazine organized a major travelling photography exhibit that will be presented at several engineering schools in France and eventually, in 2020, at the Palais du Luxembourg—home of the French Senate in Paris.

"Industry seen from above" brings together spectacular aerial photographs of industrial installations and infrastructure in France and abroad. And ITER is one of them.

The organizers chose a composite photo created by ITER contractor Emmanuel Riche from several drone views of the ITER site taken at dusk in December 2017. The resulting "planet"—centred on the Tokamak Building and its circular bioshield, with cranes jutting out at the "equator"—is one of the most spectacular renditions of the ITER site, in both its artistic and its documentary approach.

A photo of a specimen of tungsten-fibre-reinforced tungsten after a stress test won the first prize in science publisher Elsevier's "NuMart Image Competition". Johann Riesch and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) developed the composite material as part of the search for materials that could be used at high-stress locations in fusion plasma vessels.

Although tungsten is the metal with the highest melting point, it is highly brittle and develops cracks under punctual stresses. Taking their cue from fibre-reinforced ceramics, Riesch and his team developed tungsten-fibre-reinforced tungsten where tungsten fibres with a diameter of 150 micrometres bridge the cracks in the tungsten matrix.

The photo taken by Martin Balden shows the new material after a breaking test as seen by an electron-microscope, demonstrating how the fibres enhance the fracture toughness of the tungsten material. The image will feature on the cover of the jubilee issue of Elsevier's Journal of Nuclear Materials, which will be published in April 2019, marking its 60th anniversary.

See the full article on the IPP website here.

The sequel of the ITER manga is out. Taiyô Tenno, the young Japanese art student who had visited Provence and had been introduced to ITER by French scientist Soléane, has returned to France. He spends his summer vacation as an intern at ITER's Communication Department where he and his two intern colleagues are tasked to come up with an idea of how to reach out to people all over the world and spread the word about ITER.

Taiyô meets Soléane again who introduces him to ITER's Deputy-Director Eisuke Tada. During a weekend walk on the Sainte Victoire mountain near Aix-en-Provence with Mr. Tada, Taiyô learns about the diversity at ITER, with experts coming from all over the world, sharing ideas in an open and frank atmosphere. Taiyô is inspired and returns to work full of ideas.

To find out how the story ends, read the new installment "A small sun on Earth. Volume 2: Internship chapter" published by ITER Japan. It is available in Japanese, English and French.

Download the manga on the ITER Japan website here or directly from the ITER Publications page (Comics).

A two-year campaign to test the resistance of EUROFER97 steel, financed by the European Domestic Agency, has just ended at the Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group (NRG) of the Netherlands.

The European Domestic Agency, Fusion for Energy, will be using a new kind of steel—EUROFER97—in its test blanket module program for its ability to resist high heat fluxes and neutron activation. In 2015, the agency contracted with Studsvik (Sweden) and its subcontractor NRG to study the performance of the steel after irradiation in conditions similar to those expected at ITER. Four irradiation campaigns with EUROFER97 steel samples have now been carried out in NRG's High Flux Reactor in Petten and the samples will undergo full analysis at Studsvik for brittleness, material strength, and microscopic changes.

Read the article in World Nuclear News.

A recent public hearing organized by the Budgetary Control Committee of the European Parliament has shed a light on the significant impact of ITER in terms of economic benefits and job creation.

According to Massimo Garribba, Director at the Commission's Directorate-General for Energy, ITER has produced almost EUR 4.8 billion in gross value added and almost 34,000 "job years" over the period 2008-2017 through the award of over 900 contracts and grants in 24 countries of the European Union.

European companies report that working for ITER generates a new knowledge base, offers new business opportunities and increases their competitiveness and growth, helping to create additional jobs.

Read the details on the Fusion for Energy website.

Thousands of live webcams throughout the world provide viewers with spectacular natural vistas, cityscapes and beaches, trendy bars and colourful markets in real time. Every year the EarthCam network, a website that collects webcams from thousands of sites across the globe, selects 25 of the most interesting views offered to the public.

As expected, webcam #1 in 2018 was pointed at a beautiful natural scene—the Arenal volcano in Costa Rica which, until a few years ago, was one of the most active in the world. There were also cats among the first tier of the awardees.

The surprise however came with webcam #18, the Remote Glow Discharge Experiment (RGDX) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), over which the EarthCam editors confessed they were "geeking out."

The RDGX allows viewers to turn on a plasma and change the gas pressure, the voltage, and the strength of the electromagnets from any place in the world.

Along with a webcam focused on a light bulb that has been shining at the Livermore, California, Fire Department for... 117 years ... and an interactive robot-controlling cam in Oakland, also in California, Princeton's RDGX is the only science- and technology-oriented webcam to make the first "25 most interesting webcams" in the world.

Read the original article on the PPPL website.

At the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), researcher Fulvio Militello is working on a statistical model that compares the seemingly random movement of filaments (structures that emerge at the edges of the hot plasma) to the behaviour of raindrops. In the same way that each unique raindrop follows the same laws of physics (they hit the pavement), filaments that differ in strength, speed, size, amplitude or position follow certain rules as they move. Militello's model estimates collective behaviour in order to give scientists a tool to predict and control them. Read more about his theory on the CCFE website.

In working with data from the DIII-D tokamak, physicists Ahmed Diallo and Julien Dominski from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have uncovered a trigger for a particular type of ELM—fiery bursts of plasma called Edge Localized Modes—that does not fit into present models. Their findings could shed light on the variety of mechanisms leading to the onset of ELMs and could broaden the portfolio of ELM suppression tools. Read the full report on the PPPL website.

On October 9 2014, fusion research bodies from European Union member states and Switzerland signed an agreement to cement European collaboration on fusion research and EUROfusion—the European Consortium for Development of Fusion Energy—was born. EUROfusion supports and funds fusion research activities on behalf of the European Commission's Euratom program. Today, there are 30 participating research organizations and universities from 26 European member states plus Switzerland and the Ukraine.

Beginning this month, Ambrogio Fasoli replaces Jérome Pamela as the Chair of EUROfusion's decision-making body, the General Assembly. Jérome Pamela had been in the role since January 2015.

Challenges ahead for the new Chair include the transition to the next European research and innovation framework program, Horizon Europe; navigating the uncertainties linked to Brexit; and the strategic direction of EUROfusion as it pursues the objectives laid out in the European Roadmap to Fusion Electricity.

Read interviews of the incoming and outgoing Chairs on the EUROfusion website.

See an on-line biography of the new Chair on the EPFL website.

Every year in December, the annual meeting of the Fusion Power Associates brings together senior representatives of the US and international fusion communities and US policymakers to review the status of fusion research and consider the way forward.

The 39th annual meeting, organized in Washington D.C. on 4-5 December 2018 on the topic of "Strategies and Expectations Through the 2020s," was no different—representatives from US government and US national labs and universities mixed with representatives from programs in Canada, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom and, of course, ITER to review the fusion research landscape and promising paths to fusion energy.

All presentations from the 39th Annual Meeting can be downloaded here.

Researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in the US are reporting findings that can be beneficial to ITER, says John Greenwald on the laboratory's website.

Results published by theoretical physicist Allan Reiman and his colleague Professor Nat Fisch in Physical Review Letters focus on so-called tearing modes—instabilities in the plasma that create magnetic islands, which are a key source of plasma disruptions.

Currents driven by radio frequency waves in the interior of these magnetic islands can stabilize deleterious tearing modes, an effect that is augmented by small perturbations in the plasma's temperature.

"When the power deposition in the island exceeds a threshold level, there is a jump in the temperature that greatly strengthens the stabilizing effect," says Reiman. "This allows the stabilization of larger islands than previously thought possible."

Read the full report on the PPPL website.

Physicists Allan Reiman, left, and Nat Fisch. (Photos by Elle Starkman)

Registration is open now for the 2019 edition of the ITER Business Forum (IBF/2019) to be held in Antibes, France from 26 to 28 March.

At IBF/2019, representatives of the ITER Organization, the Domestic Agencies, and main suppliers will be making presentations on industrial involvement in the project, procurement opportunities, and main future calls for tender.

In specific thematic sessions, registered delegates will have the opportunity to meet potential partners or subcontractors at the French, European or international level. A 1-1 meeting schedule tool is also available on line for all registered companies.

To find out more about the conference, to register to participate, or to reserve a stand, please see the IBF/2019 website.

Like mountaineers at the foot of Mount Everest, spacefaring nations have aimed for the Moon "because it's there." Now, close to 60 years after the first object from Earth landed (or more accurately "crashed") on the surface of our satellite and half a century after Apollo 11 gently deposited two men on the Sea of Tranquility, there are very concrete incentives to 21st century lunar exploration.

And one of these incentives has to do with the future of fusion.

Research today is essentially focused on the fusion of hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, which is the "easiest" to achieve with our present technological capabilities. However, other energy-producing combinations of light nuclei are theoretically possible, a few of which involve the helium isotope 3 (3He). Fusing 3He with itself or with deuterium offers the immense advantage of not producing neutrons and hence avoids activating materials in the fusion chamber.

Carried by solar wind, 3He is prevented from reaching the surface of our planet because of the magnetic field that protects it. On the Moon however, where the magnetic field is considerably weaker, large quantities of 3He have accumulated close to the surface. For many years, some scientists, politicians, and private companies (and even a former Apollo astronaut) have made the argument for "mining the Moon" for 3He. Other scientists argue that mining the Moon for 3He is pure ... moonshine.

Despite the controversy, 3He recently made headlines in relation with the recent landing of the Chinese rover Chang'e 4 on the dark side of the Moon. Professor Ouyang Ziyuan, the Chief Scientist of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, was widely quoted saying that a long-term industrial program to mine the Moon for 3He was economically justified.  "The moon is 'so rich' in helium 3," he said, "that it could solve humanity's energy demand for around 10,000 years at least."

Photo: The Chang'e 4 module landed on the dark side of the Moon on 3 January 2019.