Of Interest archive

The 58h Culham Plasma Physics Summer School, planned in person from 6 to 17 September 2021, is open for applications.

The aim of the Summer School is to provide an introduction to the fundamental principles of plasma physics, together with a broad understanding of its fields of application. The organizers of the School assume no previous knowledge of the subject, but familiarity with electromagnetism and applied mathematics at first degree level would be helpful. Lecturers are drawn from the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), and leading European universities. All are renowned experts in their fields.

The deadline for applications is 30 July.

For more details please visit: https://culhamsummerschool.org.uk/

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in the Science and Technology of Fusion Energy is accepting applications for Autumn 2021 entry (plasma strand).

Potential projects are listed on this Fusion CDT webpage. 

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the main UK government agency for funding research and training in engineering and the physical sciences. Students undertake a 4 year PhD, where the first year allows students to explore the research area and build strong expertise in their "home" discipline while developing the skills and knowledge to cross disciplinary boundaries effectively. Students also undertake a formal programme of taught coursework to develop and enhance technical knowledge across a range of appropriate disciplines, as well as enhancing skills.

Qualified overseas applicants are welcome to apply; however, the availability of fully funded positions is limited.

For all application information see this page on the Fusion CDT website.

Are you a female student or a young professional in the field of nuclear physics or nuclear engineering? Are you wondering in which area to specialize, or what the right next step in your career is? Then this IAEA webinar featuring careers for women in fusion science and technology might be the right one for you!

Five renowned female fusion experts will highlight their own career paths and what motivated them to start working and stay in this field. They will discuss the role of women in fusion science and technology, what is needed to increase the representation of female experts in this field and why fusion offers a promising career for women. 

Date: 15:00 CET on 14 April 2021
Register for the event here: https://bit.ly/2Phnggv
Password for the event: fusion1!

The 28th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2020) will take place on line from 10 to 15 May 2021. Deadlines are fast approaching for the submittal of documents:

Deadline for submitting manuscripts and other materials (presentations, summary slides, posters, journal articles): 9 April 2021

Deadline for submitting recorded presentations: 15 April 2021 

See the IAEA FEC 2020 website for guidelines and uploading instructions. To register as an observer complete Form A here (right margin). Potential sponsors and journalists should consult the local organizer website here.

Scientists at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, California, have released a new design for a compact fusion reactor that can generate electricity and help define the technology necessary for commercial fusion power. The approach is based on the "Advanced Tokamak" concept pioneered by the DIII-D program, which enables a higher-performance, self-sustaining configuration that holds energy more efficiently than in typical pulsed configurations, allowing it to be built at a reduced scale and cost.

"The key to our approach is to raise the pressure inside the tokamak," said project lead Dr. Richard Buttery. "This makes more fusion occur, allowing us to reduce the current, which in turn makes the plasma easier to sustain and more stable. Our simulations show that by carefully shaping the plasma and moving the current toward its edge, we can suppress turbulent heat losses and support higher pressures at lower currents, to reach a state where the plasma sustains itself. This enables a device that can simply be turned on, generating electricity continuously in a steady state."

Read the General Atomics press release here.

A new video issued by Fusion for Energy, the European Domestic Agency, takes us onto the shop floor at Walter Tosto where three ITER vacuum vessel sectors are in various stages of fabrication.

Each 440-tonne sector is formed from four segments, and each segment requires the same step-by-step fabrication route: contractors form and weld the inner shell, attach inner ribs and support housings, install in-wall shielding blocks, and—in the final activity to complete the segments—fit and weld the outer shell.

Europe—responsible for delivering five sectors to ITER—is working with the AMW Consortium (Ansaldo Nucleare, Mangiarotti, Walter Tosto) and an extensive network of European subcontractors. At Walter Tosto, in Chieti, Italy, teams are currently finalizing dimension checks on the sub-parts of sector #5, and completing welding on the segments of sectors #4 and #9.

Watch the two-minute video here.

Cooperative research between the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in USA and the Institute of Plasma Physics (ASIPP) of the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) in China has identified a key approach to creating plasma conditions that will be necessary for steady-state operation of ITER. This new approach shows promise in avoiding potential edge instabilities in the plasma that can pose increased plasma-material interaction challenges.

Plasma instabilities known as edge-localized modes (ELMs) are a challenge to stable operation of fusion reactors. Effective ELM control is particularly important in high-confinement, steady-state fusion plasmas such as ITER. The research at DIII-D and EAST found that maintaining high density at the edge of the plasma and a high density ratio between the pedestal bottom and top can reduce the severity of ELMs.

"Combining ELM control with high fusion performance will be critical for efficient operation of ITER and the power plants that come after it," said XU Guosheng. "These results are an important step toward practical fusion energy."

One approach to ELM control has been creating plasma conditions in which ELMs may occur, but are much smaller. Known as "grassy" ELMs, these conditions have been achieved on other devices, but often under parameters that are not suitable for large, long pulse devices like ITER. Experiments on DIII-D demonstrated a grassy ELM regime at an ITER-relevant parameters.

Read the full press release here.

In lieu of an in-person ITER Business Forum this year, the ITER Organization is planning a two-day Remote ITER Business Meeting, from 6 to 7 April 2021.

The purpose is the same: to inform the business community about upcoming contract opportunities at ITER and to create the opportunity for businesses to meet and plan together through B2B meetings.

It will also be possible to meet project specialists in one-to-one Skype sessions on a variety of topics, including how to set up a business in the south of France with the Welcome Around ITER network and specific contract opportunities (Hot Cell, maintenance services, Tritium Plant, remote maintenance, and European contract opportunities through Fusion for Energy).  

To participate, fill out your pre-registration form on this website: https://www.iter.org/ribm2021. The deadline is 6 April 2021.

The EUROfusion consortium has announced the award of 16 fusion energy research grants across Europe for the development of innovative new ideas and techniques.

EUROfusion makes grants available on behalf of the European Commission's Euratom program. In its meeting on 3 March 2021, the General Assembly of EUROfusion selected 16 out of 72 Enabling Research proposals based on the recommendations of the scientific boards in four research categories. EUROfusion will invest a total of € 20.1 million in these projects, of which € 9.9 million comes as a contribution from the consortium.

The four research categories are: materials, theory and modelling, technology and systems, and inertial fusion. 

View the list of the recipients and their projects on the EUROfusion website.

The 18 toroidal field magnets of the JT-60SA tokamak in Japan are now fully energized at a current of 25.7kA. Reaching the full design magnetic field for this coil set is another step of the commissioning activities underway on this collaborative project, financed and executed jointly by Europe and Japan. 

Each of the 18 coils is 7.5 metres high and 4.5 metres wide; together they weigh 370 tonnes. They produce a magnetic field running around the torus that has a strength of 2.25T at the centre of its cross section. This field is fundamental to confining the superheated plasma of the tokamak.

The successful generation of the toroidal field demonstrates the simultaneous operation of numerous tokamak systems, in particular the cryoplant, cryodistribution, the cryostat, the thermal shields, power supply, instrumentation, and central control. The commissioning phase will culminate with first plasma later this year. 

More information here.

An article published on 22 February 2021 in Nature highlights the importance of the upcoming campaign on the JET tokamak (UK) for ITER.

"Nuclear fusion experiments with deuterium and tritium at the Joint European Torus are a crucial dress rehearsal for the mega-experiment," writes author Elizabeth Gibney. "JET's experiments will help scientists to predict how the plasma in the ITER tokamak will behave and to craft the mega-experiment's operating settings."

Chief ITER scientist Tim Luce agrees. "It's the closest we can get to achieving ITER conditions in present-day machines."

JET will be running experiments with hydrogen isotopes tritium and deuterium—the very fuel mix that ITER will use. Some experiments will use just tritium; others will combine deuterium and tritium in equal proportions. Both types of experiment are important, the author explains, because a key goal is to understand the effect of tritium's larger mass on plasma behaviour (tritium has two neutrons in its nucleus, whereas deuterium has one and hydrogen has none). That will help in predicting the impact of using different isotopes in ITER.

Read the full article here.

"A [US] fusion plant is still years away, but it is definitely getting closer."

So concludes the Editor-in-Chief of Nuclear News, the American Nuclear Society's flagship publication, in the preface to the January 2021 issue. Nuclear News dedicates more than 50 pages to fusion energy, at a time when there is an increasing groundswell of interest in fusion in the United States and coalescence around the idea of constructing a fusion pilot plant. 

Highlights include a major contribution by ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot on the role of ITER; an article on public/private partnerships as the ideal way of advancing technology; features on fusion safety and the regulatory environment; input from startups looking to commercialize fusion energy; and an editorial by US ITER Project Office Director Kathy McCarthy, Associate Laboratory Director for Fusion and Fission Energy and Science at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

See a preview of the issue, or subscribe on the American Nuclear Society's website.

The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine has released a report calling for the construction in the US of a 50-megawatt pilot fusion power plant.

At the request of the US Department of Energy (DOE), a committee of 12 scientists has written Bringing Fusion to the U.S. Grid, with the aim of providing guidance on the key goals and innovation needed to build an electricity-producing fusion power plant at lowest possible capital cost.

This is the third major US report on fusion in 24 months.

• - In 2019, the National Academies published the Final Report of the Committee on a Strategic Plan for U.S. Burning Plasma Research, recommending 1) that the US remain a partner in ITER "as the most cost-effective way to gain experience with a burning plasma at the scale of a power plant," and 2) that the US start a "national program of accompanying research and technology leading to the construction of a compact pilot plant." (Read more here.)
• - In March 2020, hundreds of scientists representing a broad range of national labs, universities, and private ventures released A Community Plan for Fusion Energy and Discovery Plasma Sciences. It offers a consensus view of the bold steps to take nationally to deliver fusion energy and advance plasma science in the United States, including maintaining participation in ITER. (See more here.)

The new publication builds on both reports.

"Fusion energy offers the prospect of addressing the nation's energy needs and contributing to the transition to a low-carbon emission electrical generation infrastructure. Technology and research results from U.S. investments in the major fusion burning plasma experiment known as ITER, coupled with a strong foundation of research funded by the Department of Energy, position the United States to begin planning for its first fusion pilot plant. Strong interest from the private sector is an additional motivating factor, as the process of decarbonizing and modernizing the nation's electric infrastructure accelerates and companies seek to lead the way."

Read the full report here.

Or view the slides from a recent webinar on the report.

The JT-60SA tokamak—just a few months from its first plasma as the updated "Super Advanced" satellite for ITER—has launched a new website.

The site features updated content and style, and aims to provide a wide audience, including students, the press, researchers and members of the general public, with information and regular status updates on JT-60SA.

Since the completion of assembly, the Japanese and European joint team is now preparing the device for first plasma, which is planned for spring 2021. Integrated commissioning is underway, including cooldown and progressive coil energization. 

Read all about it on the new JT-60SA website.

Because the mechanical and thermal properties of materials can change substantially under neutron irradiation, one of the major challenges for the demonstration of fusion electricity is to develop neutron-resistant materials.

As part of the EUROfusion Roadmap to the Realisation of Fusion Energy (here), the Belgian nuclear research lab SCK CEN tested ITER baseline structural materials like tungsten, copper and steel during a lengthy regimen of high heat and intense neutron radiation flux. Inside SCK CEN's fission research reactor BR2, the material samples spent two years facing a temperature of up to 1200 degrees Celsius in a hail of neutrons from uranium fission.

SCK CEN will now partner with other European research labs to investigate how the high speed neutrons have impacted the thermo-mechanical properties of the irradiated samples.

Read the full report on the EUROfusion website.

--Image: A basic plasma-facing unit consisting of a tungsten block and a copper cooling water pipe. Source: SCK CEN

Harnessing fusion energy will provide humankind with a virtually unlimited, clean and safe energy source. It might also open the way to a new, superfast way of exploring the solar system and beyond.

Using the power of fusion to propel rockets to velocities otherwise unattainable, and hence dramatically shortening the duration of space travel, is not a new idea: at space agencies throughout the world, nuclear fusion propulsion has been on the agenda for decades.

The latest news in the field, however, does not come from a space agency but from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), one of the major plasma research institutions worldwide. A few years ago, Fatima Ebrahimi, a principal research physicist there, began thinking about "the similarities between a car's exhaust and the high-velocity exhaust particles created by PPPL's National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX)." During operation, she reflected, "NSTX produces magnetic bubbles called plasmoids that move at around 20 kilometres per second, which seemed to me a lot like thrust."

Ebrahimi nurtured and streamlined the concept for a few years and, in December 2020, introduced it in the Journal of Plasma Physics. The title ("An Alfvenic reconnecting plasmoid thruster"*) was rather austere but the content quite mind-boggling: according to simulations, Ebrahimi's plasma thruster could eject particles at velocities of up to 1,500 kilometres per second. All of sudden, Mars and the moon of Jupiter are appearing much closer.

Read a detailed article on the PPPL website.

*Ebrahimi, F. (2020). An Alfvenic reconnecting plasmoid thruster. Journal of Plasma Physics, 86(6), 905860614. doi:10.1017/S0022377820001476

Due to Covid-19 pandemic and related global restrictions, the Local Organizing Committee of the 28th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC2020) has decided, in collaboration with the IAEA, to hold the conference on a virtual platform with the same dates maintained, from 10- 15 May 2021.

In addition to a full program, which will be available globally in appropriate time zones for each audience, we will also ensure opportunities for sponsoring and networking. If you are a potential sponsor and interested in finding out more about these opportunities, you can contact us at sponsor@fec2020.fr. 

Consult the FEC 2020 scientific program here.

Registration opens on 1 March 2021; more information at https://fec2020.fr/.

On 22 December 2020, the Fusion Energy Forum of Japan (FEFJ) held its annual Symposium on the ITER Project and Broader Approach* activities. Featuring speakers from government, business, academia, and science, the 3.5-hour event covered fusion energy policy in Japan, progress in domestic and international fusion projects (including ITER and the Broader Approach), frontiers of research, and industrial applications.

See all speakers and presentations at this link. 

Watch the event on YouTube in Japanese or with a voiceover in English.  

* The Broader Approach activities, financed by Europe and Japan, aim to accelerate the realization of fusion energy. Find out more here.

The European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy, has opened a contest to reward companies for the commercial use of fusion technologies in non-fusion markets. 

Open to all European companies and organizations, the Technology Transfer Award competition aims to encourage and promote projects where a fusion technology or know-how is used or is planned to be used outside of fusion applications.

Applications will be evaluated according to the resources and efforts deployed by the candidate to achieve commercial use of the technology in a non-fusion market, as well as the socio-economic impact of the project on the market. The selected project will receive a sole prize of €10,000.

Applications are open from 18 January 2021 to 18 March 2021 at this link.