During the Nineteenth Meeting of the ITER Council held last week from 16 to 17 November, representatives of the ITER Members reviewed the complete updated project schedule as proposed by the ITER Organization. The schedule, which covers the period up to First Plasma in 2025 and on to Deuterium-Tritium Operation in 2035, was approved by all Members. Building on renewed confidence achieved through the past 18 months of sustained strong performance in construction and manufacturing, the updated 2016-2035 schedule reflects the consensus and integrated efforts of the ITER Organization and the seven Domestic Agencies.   The overall project schedule was approved by all ITER Members, and the overall project cost was approved ad referendum, meaning that it will now fall to each Member to seek approval of project costs through respective governmental budget processes.   The Council stressed that the successful completion of all 19 project milestones for 2016, on time and on budget, provides tangible evidence of full adherence to commitments by all Members. These milestones had been approved by the ITER Council one year ago as a way to track project momentum while discussions were underway on the long-term schedule.   The updated schedule through Deuterium-Tritium Operation (2035) selects a "staged approach" after First Plasma as a way to increase confidence and minimize risk. In the staged approach to assembling ITER, assembly phases will alternate with periods of operation.   Read the full press release in English or French.View the photo gallery from the Nineteenth ITER Council (IC-19) below.

On 3 August 2016, Ian Chapman was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), with responsibility for the UK's magnetic confinement fusion research program at the Culham Science Centre and an increasing range of high-tech activities such as robotics and materials research. After taking over from Steven Cowley on 1 October, one of his first missions led him to ITER. He took a few minutes out of his full schedule to speak with Newsline. Is this your first visit to ITER Headquarters?   No, but my first one in three years. And I can attest that huge progress is being made. In those days there was merely a hole in the ground with some rebar and concrete and seismic pads. On my way in this morning—we arrived just before 8:00 a.m. —I could already see cranes and workers moving around. There was a lot of activity. To see such tangible progress is very important for the morale of the fusion community.   UKAEA CEO at the age of 34 ... did this appointment come as a surprise to you?   Very much so. Governments rarely make bold decisions, but appointing me was clearly a bold decision. I think it was a conscious decision by the British Government, a demonstration of their commitment to fusion. It is a demonstration that they are thinking long term; they are thinking about putting power on the grid and actually delivering fusion power. And that is exactly what is driving me.   It is not just R&D for esoteric plasma physics—it's a focused mission, the way ahead to change the world and do something amazing. That's what drives me.   What impact will the EU referendum membership vote have for the UK fusion community?   We genuinely don't know yet. Members of the British Government are still in a mode of responding to a decision they did not expect. The government simply did not make contingency plans for the vote going the other way, so we were completely unprepared. Now, a few months on, we are still in the stage of understanding the size of the problem. But I think the situation is positive for fusion, as nuclear is high on the agenda. Our links with the broader European nuclear community pulls fusion up the agenda because civil nuclear power is important to the government.   The members of government are engaging in discussions about how to deal with the Euratom treaty, through which the UK contributes to ITER. Euratom is separate from the treaty that links the UK to the European Union, and so we are trying to communicate on the choice that we have here. We can consciously decide to remain in Euratom, or remain an associate member of Euratom.   I can't really guess what will happen in the horse-trading, but as soon as we trigger Article 50 and announce that we are leaving formally, there will then be a long period of negotiation with the European Commission. We don't know how that trading will go, but I hope that we will remain within Euratom. The entire science community in the UK, every single voice, says we are better off as part of the community. We are better off collaborating, being outward looking and engaging instead of becoming insular. This message is so consistent that I hope government will find a way to allow us to continue to participate. Not just in Euratom, but within the broader framework program.   UKAEA CEO Ian Chapman (centre) visited the ITER site on 10 November with Martin Townsend, Head of Business Development at Culham Science Centre (right) and David Campbell, Director of ITER Science and Operations Department. This is a very difficult situation for you to start with...   Over half of our turnover comes from the European Commission; this is at the front and centre of all of my staff's attention, their number one concern. We have to find a route through these troubled waters.   In the meantime, what are the near-term plans for JET?   JET will be operating with tritium again in 2018, and then operating with a deuterium-tritium mix in 2019. This will be the first D-T operation since 1997. It has been a long time since the community has operated with proper fusion fuels and genuinely produced fusion power and alpha-particles. The diagnostic and control systems are incomparable to what they were in 1997, so we have a lot more understanding of plasma dynamics and how to control the plasma. We are thus hoping to break the fusion energy records, perhaps not for fusion power, but for fusion energy over longer periods of time.   So JET remains a strong pillar of the fusion community?   Absolutely, otherwise you have this enormous gap between doing D-T in JET in 1997 and doing D-T in ITER in 2035. It is utterly essential to repeat these experiments in JET. Do you see an increase of interest in fusion amongst students?   I can only speak on behalf of the UK, but we have an ever burgeoning interest in the field. We are oversubscribed by a factor of ten compared with the students we can take.   I read that you are also a strong proponent of communication?   Yes, as we absolutely need public engagement. What we are doing is very important. We will make a huge difference to people's lives; they need to understand that.   There are examples of successful communication. We saw for example what happened at CERN, how the LHC had similar schedule and cost problems during its construction period. But the political support didn't waiver much because they were very good in communicating with all levels of stakeholders. So communication is a big thing in general, but it is even more critical now for ITER. It is very important that we continue to communicate very clearly with all stakeholders, from the general public up to the people who write the cheques.

It doesn't take much to open up a whole new perspective on ITER: basically a cardboard viewer, a smartphone and an Internet link. Connect to the site, fit the smartphone into the viewer and brace for a spectacular experience. You'll be flying high over the ITER site, entering buildings, viewing ongoing fabrications...   Still under development, the tool will soon be accessible through the ITER website. But it was made available to the ITER Council participants last week who, like ITER Council Chair Won Namkung and ITER Council Secretary Sachiko Ishizaka, visibly enjoyed the experience...

An important milestone was celebrated on the margins of the ITER Council last week when the head of ITER China, Luo Delong, and ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot signed the Blanket First Wall Procurement Arrangement on 16 November. This was the last remaining Procurement Arrangement scheduled for signature by the Chinese Domestic Agency in the context of its "in-kind" procurement commitments to the project.  Since the first Procurement Arrangement signed by China in June 2008 for toroidal field magnet conductors, the Chinese Domestic Agency has signed a total of 14 Procurement Arrangements plus four Complementary Diagnostic Arrangements. Every Procurement Arrangement represents the transfer of a specific scope of work from the ITER Organization to an ITER Domestic Agency.   "This achievement represents the culmination of an intense, dedicated effort in China aimed at developing the required high heat flux technology, which was successfully completed with the testing of prototypes under loading conditions above the ITER requirements," said Mario Merola, head of the Internal Components Division at ITER. Rene Raffray, Blanket Section leader, added:  "We have established a strong and productive collaborative effort with our Chinese colleagues during the design and qualification phase and I look forward to continuing this collaboration during the forthcoming procurement phase."   The Procurement Arrangement concerns enhanced heat flux blanket first wall panels located in the inboard equatorial region of the vacuum chamber. Other enhanced heat flux first wall panels will be supplied by Russia (Procurement Arrangement signed in 2014), while Europe is procuring the normal heat flux panels (Procurement Arrangement planned next year).   The blanket first wall—being the primary interface to the plasma—absorbs radiation and particle heat fluxes from the plasma; it also provides a plasma-facing surface compatible with plasma performance requirements and a limiting surface that defines the plasma boundary during plasma start-up/ramp-down. To fulfil its function, the first wall panels are armoured with beryllium and designed to accommodate high surface heat fluxes (up to 4.7 MW/m2). The panels are actively cooled by pressurized water. Included in the scope of the Procurement Arrangement are the related central bolt assemblies (to mount the panels onto the shield blocks), pads (to react the electromagnetic loads), electrical strap assemblies (to route the eddy and halo currents to the shield blocks) as well as the water connection pipes to the shield blocks.   Kun Wang, the Chinese Domestic Agency Responsible Officer for this Procurement Arrangement welcomed last week's signature milestone, declaring: "More than 10 years of effort have now culminated with this Procurement Arrangement signature and it is such an exciting moment! We are entering a new phase for the blanket first wall procurement and, together with our ITER Organization colleagues, I look forward to further collaboration."   The next step in the procurement process will be for Liman Bao, the ITER Organization technical responsible officer for this Procurement Arrangement, to kick off the procurement activities. To this aim, an in-person meeting has already been scheduled in December between the Chinese Domestic Agency and the ITER Organization.          

Two shipments of "oversize" components for ITER's cryoplant are currently making their way to ITER. The first consists of two 35-metre long quench tanks procured by Europe. The tanks were first transported along the Elbe by barge from the Czech Republic where they were fabricated to Germany, before being loaded on board a shipping vessel in Hamburg. One month later they reached the Mediterranean port of Fos-sur-Mer, where they were unloaded earlier this month and transported across the inland sea of Berre. They leave today for three nights along the ITER Itinerary, and are scheduled to reach ITER in the early hours of Thursday 24 November.   Two out of three "cold boxes" for the ITER cryoplant have left their fabrication site and will soon be loaded onto a sea-river vessel in Lyon. © AirLiquide - Laurent Lelong The second shipment is made of slightly smaller loads procured by the ITER Organization—three 21-metre long "cold boxes" that house key components for ITER's liquid helium plants. They  have left their fabrication site and will soon be loaded onto a sea-river vessel in Lyon to sail down the Rhône River all the way to Fos-sur-Mer. They will also travel along the ITER Itinerary, reaching ITER by mid-December.   Fully 90 percent of cryoplant components are expected on site by the end of the year to be stored until the building and technical areas become available for the start of installation activities.

ITER was born twice—once in 1985 in Geneva as an aspiration, and a second time ten years ago today (21 November 2006) by way of an international agreement signed in Paris to establish "the ITER International Fusion Energy Organization for the Joint Implementation of the ITER Project." The project has come a long and hard way since the Geneva Summit, during which President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev advocated for "the widest practicable development of international cooperation" in obtaining fusion energy "for the benefit of all mankind."   Seventeen years would elapse before agreeing on a final design for the machine, and four more to decide where to build the installation. On 28 June 2005, the seven members of the Project unanimously agreed on the site proposed by Europe, a 180-hectare stretch of land adjacent to one of France's largest nuclear research centres, and close to the small Provençal village of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance.   Now came the time to formally establish the legal international entity that would tackle the huge task of organizing and supervising the construction of the ITER installation.   Because France was the "Host State" to the project, the ITER Agreement was signed at the Elysée Palace in Paris. On 21 November 2006, high-level representatives from all the participating Members gathered under the gilded ceilings of the presidential palace to append their signature to the 34-page document.   President Chirac of France praised the "unprecedented association of seven major partners [...] extending their hand to the future generations in the name of solidarity and responsibility."     They were ITER ... but not quite.The men and women in this picture, taken only days after the signature of the ITER Agreement, worked under a variety of contracts out of temporary housing at CEA Cadarache. The President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, expressed his desire "to see ITER succeed in bringing to our societies progress and benefits currently beyond measure: the possibility of exploiting a new source of energy respecting of the environment and virtually inexhaustible."¹   In Saint-Paul-lez-Durance where some 60 people were already at work in temporary buildings, it was a time for celebration. The new-born ITER Newsline (the weekly's first issue had been published one month earlier) quoted ITER Director-General nominee Kaname Ikeda saying that ITER could now "embark on its mission as a worldwide international cooperation to help create a new source of energy for humankind."   All of this happened ten years ago to the day. The "mission" of 2006 has swung into spectacular action, with buildings now rising high above the ITER platform and components steadily exiting factories on three continents to be delivered to the construction site.   ¹ Click here for the special issue of the IAEA newsletter on the ITER Agreement, dated December 2006.

The Radiation Transport Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has won a prestigious award through the US DOE Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program for radiation shielding model for ITER. The project, titled "Safe fusion energy: predictively modeling ITER radiation shielding," has been awarded 80 million computer processor hours on the Titan Cray XK7, the most powerful supercomputer in the US for open science. INCITE awards are given annually to projects that represent "the biggest challenges in science and engineering today, and can't be done anywhere else." Investigators Seth Johnson, Thomas Evans, and Stephen Wilson propose a radical solution for accurately modelling ITER's shielding design at an unprecedented level of detail and scale. Read more about the INCITE program and the 2016 winners here.