Of Interest archive

The ITER Organization has signed an agreement on technical cooperation with TAE Technololgies. 

This private fusion energy company located in California is developing a proprietary compact, linear device called "an advanced beam-driven field-reversed configuration" designed to operate with hydrogen-boron fuel. Two subsidiaries—TAE Power Solutions (for a more efficient and resilient power grid) and TAE Life Sciences (novel cancer drugs)—complement its fusion power activities, which have been underway since the company's founding in 1998.

The purpose of the agreement between TAE and ITER is "to promote cooperation and exchange in technical fields of mutual interest." "Together, we will work to advance the development of fusion power and a well-trained workforce," said the company in a post on Facebook.

-- ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi (second from left) meets (left to right) Chief Technology Officer Artem Smirnov, SVP Fusion Science Sergei Putvinski, CEO Michl Binderbauer, and VP R&D Mike Meekins during a recent visit to TAE Headquarters.

The Board of Directors of Fusion Power Associates (FPA) has announced its 2024 Leadership Awards. The awards will be presented at Fusion Power Associates 45th Annual Meeting and Symposium "Fusion Energy: Progress, Challenges and Promise," December 2-3, in Washington, DC.

Ian Chapman (UKAEA, left) is recognized for the broad range of his technical and management skills, including the completion of the JET scientific mission and the expansion of the UKAEA Culham Laboratory's role in establishing a UK national focus on moving more quickly toward fusion power.

Constantin Haefner (Fraunhofer Institut, right) is recognized for his demonstrated leadership in the areas of state-of-the-art laser and optical technology for inertial fusion, high energy density physics and the generation of secondary sources for a range of applications, and the role he is playing in elevating national attention on fusion energy development.

FPA Leadership Awards have been given annually since 1980 to recognize persons who have shown outstanding leadership qualities in accelerating the development of fusion as a commercial power source. A list of previous recipients can be found at http://fusionpower.org and click on Awards.

On 2 July, the Fusion Industry Association released its 2024 Supply Chain Report. The report—an updated version of last year's—surveys fusion developers and suppliers to get a snapshot of where the supply chain stands as the fusion industry grows. Designed to capture and analyze trends, challenges, and opportunities within the industry, the report "aims to serve as a resource to better understand the scope of supply and demand in fusion energy, and to guide investment and policy strategy to support the realization of commercial fusion power at scale."

More information available here.

The Board of Directors of Fusion Power Associates (FPA) has announced the recipients of its 2024 Distinguished Career Awards. The awards will be presented at Fusion Power Associates 45th Annual Meeting and Symposium, Fusion Energy: Progress, Challenges and Promise, 2-3 December 2024 in Washington, D.C.

E. Michael Campbell is recognized for his decades of scientific and managerial leadership of inertial confinement fusion programs at LLNL, General Atomics and the University of Rochester, and consulting/advisory contributions at many other institutions. The Board especially notes the seminal early roles he played that led to the construction of the National Ignition Faciiity, that then led to the recent first laboratory demonstration of fusion ignition.

Bruno Van Wonterghem is recognized for his decades of tenacious dedication to scientific and operational excellence in bringing both the LLNL Beamlet and NIF facilities to completion and successful operations. The Board especially notes his many scientific  publications contributing to understanding laboratory inertial confinement fusion and his managerial expertise that has enabled thousands of groundbreaking laser-plasma experiments.

FPA Distinguished Career Awards have been given annually since 1987 to recognize individuals who have made distinguished lifelong career contributions to fusion energy development. A list of previous recipients is at https://fusionpower.org and click on Awards.

In the communiqué published on 14 June 2024 at the close of the G7 Summit in Italy, the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States listed fusion energy among the initiatives and commitments having the potential to advance efforts to address the triple global crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. 

Under the sub-heading of "Energy, Climate and Environment," the communiqué states:

"Fusion energy technology has the potential to provide a lasting solution to the global challenges of climate change and energy security. We will promote international collaborations to accelerate the development and demonstration of fusion plants to foster private investments and public engagement. With this aim, we commit to establishing a G7 Working Group on Fusion Energy. We will also work towards consistent approaches to fusion regulations. To enhance cooperation in this field, we welcome Italy and the International Atomic Energy Agency's decision to host in Rome the inaugural ministerial meeting of the World Fusion Energy Group."

Read the full communiqué here.

Fusion For Energy (F4E) will be hosting a roundtable, taking place on 25-26 June in Barcelona, Spain, on International Frameworks for Fusion Technology Development. The event will host scientists, industry representatives, and public sector representatives, addressing topics such as new technologies, and current advancements and challenges in the industry.

Register for the event here.

Leading European companies are joining forces to establish the European Fusion Association (EFA).

The initiative, which will be formally established in the next few months, aims to address one of the biggest challenges for the coming decades: enhancing strategic autonomy for clean energy with fusion energy being key to this ambition. The EFA seeks to build a "strong, world-class European fusion ecosystem that ensures a sustainable long-term supply chain for fusion energy," according to the press release, believing that "only a united Europe can achieve true success in this field and prevent the fragmentation of the European industry into isolated national entities."

The group says the idea germinated during the ITER Private Sector Fusion Workshop, held in May 2024, driven by a shared belief that Europe covers all necessary technologies and know-how to develop a fusion energy system in Europe. The founding members include Alsymex (France), ASG (Italy), Assystem (France), Bruker EAS (Germany), Demaco (Netherlands), Gauss Fusion (Europe), IDOM (Spain), Simic (Italy), Subra (Denmark) and Trumpf (Germany).

Read more about the European Fusion Association here.

In this bonus episode of the ITER podcast, hear some of the voices of those who took part in the first Private Sector Fusion Workshop at ITER Headquarters in May.

"Future Stars" was recorded on site as hundreds of people were meeting, comparing notes, and exploring possible paths to collaboration—all in the context of ITER asking "How can we help?"

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

The world met at VivaTech, Europe's biggest startup and tech event, and ITER was part of it! With more than 165,000 attendees, 400 speakers and 13,500 startups, Vivatech shattered records and brought together prestigious personalities such as Elon Musk, John Kerry, the Williams sisters and many more.

While artificial intelligence was the hot topic, energy was also discussed on stage and nuclear fusion was part of the discussion. ITER scientist Richard Pitts captivated the VivaTech crowd with a debate with Hartmut Ruhl from Marvel Fusion about the current status of fusion energy the technical challenges remaining on the road to commercialization.

Among the many prestigious visitors, Sylvie Retailleau, French Minister of Higher Education and Research, paid a visit to the ITER booth and confirmed her support and interest in this "fascinating project that will be one the options to delivering a carbon-free energy source for the generations to come." Minister Retailleau toured the ITER site in July 2023.

Sylvie Retailleau, French Minister of Higher Education and Research, paid a visit to the ITER booth and confirmed her support and interest for the project.

Registration is open for the 13th ITER International School (IIS), which will take place from 9 to 13 December 2024 in Nagoya, Japan, hosted by National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS).

The aim is to prepare young scientists and engineers for working in the field of nuclear fusion and in research applications associated with the ITER Project. The adoption of a "school" format was a result of the need to prepare future scientists and engineers on a range of different subjects and to provide them with a wide overview of the interdisciplinary skills required by ITER.

The subject of the 2024 school is "Magnetic Fusion Diagnostics and Data Science," with a scientific program coordinated by Profs. M. Yokoyama and K. Tanaka (National Institute for Fusion Science) and Drs. M. Kocan and S. McIntosh (ITER Organization). Diagnostics are key to the achievement of ITER fusion power demonstration goals, and they require the application of a wide range of techniques. However, diagnostics are not enough to ensure ITER's success; only through the advanced analysis of the data they provide will it be possible to guide the experiments towards their fusion power goals. More information is available here.

The deadline for pre-registration and abstract submission is 1 September 2024. Register here.

Last week, in the framework of the International Conference on Plasma-Surface Interaction (PSI-26) hosted in Marseille, a lunch event organized by Women in Fusion on "Creating an Inclusive Fusion Workforce" was attended by more than 100 people.

Women in Fusion (WiF) is a global platform advocating for women and women's organizations active in the fusion community (public and private sectors as well as academia) all around the globe. The group seeks to inspire and support women in the fusion field by highlighting their roles in the field, promoting their leadership, and encouraging recognition of their contributions.

The conference also opened with a keynote on the importance of gender diversity and inclusion in the fusion community, delivered by Laurence Piketty (Deputy Director General of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, CEA) and ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi.

The DIII-D National Fusion Facility at General Atomics in San Diego is starting up after undergoing eight months of upgrades that have equipped it with new and improved plasma control and diagnostic systems. These upgrades, which are expected to support experiments performed at ITER, include a range of new diagnostic instruments as well as enhancements to the way that the plasma is heated. Engineers have also installed a "shape and volume rise" divertor, which consists of a series of modular divertor configurations that the DIII-D will now test when experiments start up later this month. The new divertor will allow plasma shapes to be studied that were not possible with DIII-D's previous divertor geometry.

Read more about the upgrades at DIII-D here and here.

The French tokamak WEST, located at the Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (IRFM)/French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), has achieved record results.

WEST's latest campaign, which started in mid-January and ended on 26 April 2024, set a new plasma duration record of 6 minutes and 4 seconds, with an injected energy of 1.15 GJ, along with a steady-state central electron temperature of 4 keV (50 million degrees Celsius), and an electron density twice that of discharges obtained in the tokamak's previous configuration, Tore Supra.

Furthermore, the campaign explored the "X-Point radiation" plasma scenario leading to the achievement of one-minute plasmas with low electron temperature (Te < 5 eV) in the divertor, in turn improving the lifespan of the plasma-facing components by allowing for a better distribution of heat fluxes. In addition, several new diagnostics were successfully deployed, providing new measurements to characterize core and edge plasma. New records for power injection systems were also achieved, with 5.8 MW injected by the lower hybrid heating and current drive system and over 4 MW by the ion cyclotron resonance heating system. Lastly, WEST surpassed the milestone of 10,000 plasmas since the first WEST plasma was achieved in December 2016.

The tokamak is now in a shutdown period for maintenance and the installation of new systems. The next experimental campaign will commence in autumn 2024.

Read more about the campaign's achievements here. A French version is available here.

Sven Korving, a PhD student researching nuclear fusion at the Eindhoven University of Technology in collaboration with the ITER Science Division, had his publications selected not once, but twice for the Editor's Pick of the journal Physics of Plasmas. The journal called the research "noteworthy, novel, timely, interesting, and important." In his latest paper, dated this month, Korving predicts the transport of impurities in plasmas where instabilities are suppressed by external 3D magnetic fields. His research stands out for the contrast with papers that focus on isolating a single phenomenon, while he develops models to simultaneously and consistently simulate multiple phenomena, interconnected and coupled with each other.

The Eindhoven University of Technology's Department of Applied Physics and Science Education celebrated his achievements in a LinkedIn post, found here. More information on Sven's research can be found here.

Korving, S. Q., Huijsmans, G. T. A., Park, J.-S., & Loarte, A. (2023, April 5). Development of the neutral model in the nonlinear MHD Code JOREK: Application to E × B drifts in ITER PFPO-1 plasmas. AIP Publishing. https://pubs.aip.org/aip/pop/article/30/4/042509/2882953/Development-of-the-neutral-model-in-the-nonlinear

Korving, S. Q., Mitterauer, V., Huijsmans, G. T. A., Loarte, A., & Hoelzl, M. (2024b, May 8). Simulation of neoclassical heavy impurity transport in ASDEX Upgrade with applied 3D magnetic fields using the nonlinear MHD code JOREK. AIP Publishing. https://pubs.aip.org/aip/pop/article/31/5/052504/3290641/Simulation-of-neoclassical-heavy-impurity

--Three dimensional image of the tungsten density at the plasma edge of ASDEX Upgrade modelled by the JOREK code when 3D magnetic fields are applied for ELM control, as foreseen in ITER.

EUROfusion has opened applications for its 2025 Engineering Grants, funding post-Master's engineering projects for two years starting in 2025. Twenty outstanding early-career engineers will receive a grant contributing to their salary, research, and training activities.

The program seeks to support the education and training of a new generation of fusion engineers in alignment with the European Research Roadmap to the Realisation of Fusion Energy.

Eligibility:

- Engineers of all nationalities in possession of a Master's (MSc) degree in Engineering OR with proven multi-year engineering work experience and haven completed their Master's degree in a STEM subject in the six years preceding the application deadline.

- The proposed engineering research topic falls into one of the competency areas defined in Annex 5 of the application documents.

- The candidate must be employed by a EUROfusion Consortium member or one of their Affiliated Entities during the grant period. Interested candidates should jointly prepare their application with an institute(s) affiliated with EUROfusion, who will submit the application and offer to employ the candidate for the proposed duration of the project.

The application deadline is 21 June 2024. See further details about the program and how to apply here.

The European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy (F4E), has opened a fusion Traineeship Scheme, with opportunities in Barcelona (Spain), at ITER (France), and in Garching (Germany).

Apply by Monday 10 June for positions beginning in October 2024. Fusion for Energy is looking for profiles to match its needs in fusion engineering and physics, project and contract management, market intelligence, and administration. It offers a supportive work environment, competitive benefits, and opportunities for professional development.

Traineeships are open to candidates with European or Ukrainian nationality who have a university degree (at least three years) and a good knowledge of English (minimum B2).

See a list of available opportunities here. See all information on how to apply here.

The G7 Ministers' Meeting on Climate, Energy and Environment was held in Turin, Italy, from 28 to 30 April 2024 to identify "coherent, complementary and interconnected actions" to address the ongoing climate, energy and environmental crisis.

The promotion of fusion energy figured in the list of shared commitments published by the Energy Ministers in a joint declaration. "We recognise that with future breakthroughs in fusion energy technology, [fusion energy] has the potential to provide a lasting solution to the global challenges of climate change and energy security in the future."

The Ministers commit to promoting international collaboration to accelerate the development and demonstration of fusion plants. They also state their intention to establish a G7 Working Group of Fusion Energy to "share best practices and explore areas of mutual cooperation" with the aim of strengthening R&D cooperation, and to form a "G7 exchange" for the promotion of consistent approaches to fusion regulation.

You can read the 35-page joint communiqué here. (The paragraph on fusion energy is on page 13.)

As activity and investment in fusion swells, attention is turning to ensuring that a skilled workforce of fusion scientists, engineers, and technicians is trained and ready. National initiatives to expand training opportunities are multiplying as governments assess workforce development as critical to the development of a fusion industry. Universities are reporting growing interest in Master's and doctoral programs.

For students in the early stages of their journey, summer can be a great time to explore choices and to network. Below is a list of opportunities in English where applications are still open, listed by application deadline.

13th ITER International School
Nagoya, Japan, 9-13 December 2024
Pre-registration opens in May here

JT-60SA International Fusion School
Naka, Japan, 26 August-6 September 2024
Apply by 24 May 2024 here

PlasmaPy
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA, 29 July-1 August 2024
Apply by 24 May 2024 here

IPP Summer University for Plasma Physics and Fusion Research
Greifswald, Germany, 16-20 September 2024
Apply by 31 May 2024 here

PlasmaSurf 2024
Lisbon, Portugal, 14-20 July 2024
Apply by 31 May 2024 here

11th International Workshop & Summer School on Plasma Physics
Kiten, Bulgaria, 24-30 June 2024
Apply by 1 June 2024 here

SUMTRAIC 2024
Prague, Czech Republic, 26 August-6 September 2024
Apply by 9 June 2024 here

Culham Plasma Physics Summer School
Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, 15-25 July 2024
Apply by 28 June 2024 here

Training opportunities are kept up to date in the calendar at the top of this page of the ITER website.

On Tuesday 18 June 2024, the London Science Museum will host FUSION24, an event for anyone who wants to learn more about the opportunities that this emerging industry offers businesses, communities and the planet.

What will the power plants of the future look like? How do we fund fusion? What are we learning from other industries? How can we capitalize on a non-restrictive regulatory environment? How can we build on the current momentum? Sessions will cover everything from the solutions that a future with fusion will offer, to the skills required for success and the new markets that we will discover on the way. (See a list of planned sessions here.)

The event is free of charge. See the FUSION24 website to register to attend in person (space limited) or on line.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be hosting the Third Technical Meeting on Plasma Disruptions and their Mitigation at ITER Headquarters from 3 to 6 September 2024.

The event aims to serve as a forum to help coordinate experimental, theoretical and modelling work in the field of plasma disruptions with special emphasis on developing a solid basis for possible mitigation strategies in ITER and next-generation fusion devices. Participation is aimed at junior and senior scientific fusion project leaders, plasma physicists including theoreticians and experimentalists, and experts (researchers and engineers) in the field of plasma disruptions.

The deadline for abstract submission is 25 May 2024. See all information here.