As the Fifteenth Meeting of the ITER Council concluded on Thursday 20 November, concrete pouring was underway on the first basement-level walls of the Tokamak Complex.   This new construction milestone was welcomed by the delegates, who also noted the finalization of the Tokamak Complex basemat slab in late August and the progress reported on the manufacturing of key components in the Members' industries.   Chaired by Robert Iotti from the US, and bringing together senior representatives from China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States, the ITER Council took the important decision to nominate Bernard Bigot, from France, to succeed Osamu Motojima as the next Director-General of the ITER Organization.   Bernard Bigot is the present Administrator-General of the French Atomic and Alternative Energies Authority (Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives, CEA) and also the High Representative for ITER in France.   Council Chair Robert Iotti (US) exchanges with French Nuclear Safety Authority President Pierre-Franck Chevet. Mr Bigot's five-year appointment will be formalized in due time in accordance with the ITER Agreement, in view of Mr Bigot taking up his duties in 2015.   This decision was "fully welcomed" by Osamu Motojima, who described his successor as "an experienced manager of large projects, a leader who is able to find common ground, an excellent communicator" and someone "highly respected in the fusion community."   On 20 November, the ITER Council nominated Bernard Bigot, from France, to succeed Osamu Motojima as the next Director-General of the ITER Organization. © CEA The present ITER Director-General also stressed Bernard Bigot's "history of close involvement with ITER" going back to the early 2000 when France was applying to host the project.   Bernard Bigot said he was "fully aware of the large responsibility that it will be to lead the ITER Project as it enters a new phase" and that he would "do [his] utmost to fulfil the expectations of the Council and of all the people involved in ITER."   As the Fifteenth ITER Council special invitee Pierre-Franck Chevet, President of the French Nuclear Safety Authority (Autorité de sûreté nucléaire, ASN) made a presentation to the delegates to explain the mission, responsibilities and expectations of the ASN.   Click to read the press release in English or French.   The photo gallery from the Fifteenth ITER Council can be viewed here.

In June 2013, an unusual ceremony was held in the southeast corner of the ITER platform. Coconuts were broken, the meat was shared between the participants, and the blessing of the lord Ganesha (the "Remover-of-obstacles") was called upon this small stretch of bare land—the approximate size of a football field—that had been made available to the Indian Domestic Agency for the construction the Cryostat Workshop. Now, one and a half years later, the site of the ceremony has changed dramatically, with an impressive 110-metre-long, 44-metre-wide and 27-metre-high building now occupying the better portion of the parcel. The Cryostat Workshop, completed in February 2014 and handed over in August, was inaugurated last Friday 21 November. "This building will play an essential role in the making of the ITER Tokamak," said ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima as he addressed the many guests assembled under the high roof of the Workshop for the inauguration. "It is here that the ITER cryostat will be assembled before its integration into the machine." The construction of the Cryostat Workshop, he added, "is a beautiful example of dedication and efficiency in international collaboration." Procured by the Indian Domestic Agency, contracted to the Indian industrial giant Larsen & Toubro that is also responsible for manufacturing the cryostat, and built by the French company Spie Batignolles, the building was finalized in just nine months. The symbolic ribbon at the entrance of the Cryostat Workshop was cut by Benoît Moncade, director-general of Spie-Batignolles; Pr. Predhiman Krishan Kaw, Indian delegate to the ITER Council; M.V. Kotwal, president of Larsen & Toubro's Heavy Engineering Division; and Osamu Motojima, Director-General of the ITER Organization. Looking on are Dhiraj Bora, director of the Indian Institute of Plasma Research and former ITER DDG and Ganesh Iyer, head of the ITER Project at Larsen & Toubro Ltd. M.V. Kotwal, the president of Larsen & Toubro's Heavy Engineering Division who had travelled especially from India for the inauguration, stressed the "spirit" that presided over the construction of the building and, more broadly, over the collaboration between his company and the ITER Project. He also noted that that work was performed without one single accident or injury. "It is not only technology that makes things happen," he said. "It is the commitment, the human emotions put together. Let us all remember that by harnessing fusion energy we are working towards the unique goal of changing peoples' lives." However distant this goal may be, it is now attainable. "One day," mused Predhiman Krishan Kaw, the founding father of India's Institute for Plasma Research and a member of the Indian delegation to the ITER Council, "we will all gather again to inaugurate the ITER Project," the decisive step towards providing mankind with unlimited energy. "Success is achieved through partnership," concluded Benoît Moncade, the Director-General of Spie-Batignolles. "Our sessions in Mumbai with Larsen & Toubro were intense and we were impressed by the company's professionalism." As the "jewel box" was being inaugurated, the 30 x 30-metre, 3,800-tonne "jewel" was taking shape in Larsen & Toubro's Hazira factory, some 6,500 kilometres from the ITER site. "The elements of the base section, which will be the first large component to be integrated into the machine, are now 50 percent completed," confided Ganesh Iyer, the head of the ITER Project at Larsen & Toubro Ltd. "Delivery to the ITER site should begin this summer. One year from now, you will see a lot of activity in this building." Click here to view more images of the inauguration or here to watch a three-minute video of the event.

Since September, the US Domestic Agency has been shipping components for ITER's steady state electrical network. High voltage surge arrestors, circuit breakers, switches, current and voltage transformers, substation hardware, control and protection components, and earthing resistors have all reached site successfully and in mid-November, US-procured high voltage substation transformers left Korea for the ITER site after fabrication by vendor Hyundai Heavy Industries.   All of these components are necessary to power up the steady state electrical network by October 2015, when the site power demand will exceed the capacity of the temporary 15 kV supply line now in use.   Because of a well-coordinated team effort involving Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), the US ITER Project Office at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, URS Corporation and the ITER Organization, the first eight deliveries were completed on schedule.   "This achievement is especially notable because many of the processes and procedures associated with the logistics service provider's delivery of components to the ITER site were exercised for the first time," said Charles Neumeyer, the PPPL-based US ITER team lead for the steady state electrical network.   The United States is providing 75 percent of the steady state electrical network components. The electrical network is essential for supplying conventional power needs at the ITER site, including the pumps and heat exchangers of the tokamak cooling water system and the cryogenic plant that supplies liquid helium to the superconducting magnets. The European Union will provide the remainder of the electrical network hardware and will also handle installation.   During 2015, the United States will also deliver drain tanks for the tokamak cooling water system and toroidal field coil conductors for the magnet systems.

​Studying the intricacies and mysteries of the sun is physicist Wendell Horton life's work. A widely known authority on plasma physics, his study of the high temperature gases on the sun, or plasma, consistently leads him around the world to work on a diverse range of projects that have great impact. Fusion energy is one such key scientific issue that Horton is investigating and one that has intrigued researchers for decades. [...]   Through the Institute for Fusion Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, Horton collaborates with researchers at ITER, a fusion lab in France and the National Institute for Fusion Science in Japan to address these challenges. At ITER, Horton is working with researchers to build the world's largest tokamak—the device that is leading the way to produce fusion energy in the laboratory.   Perfecting the design of the tokamak is essential to producing fusion energy, and since it is not fully developed, Horton performs supercomputer simulations on the Stampede supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to model plasma flow and turbulence inside the device.   "Simulations give us information about plasma in three dimensions and in time, so that we are able to see details beyond what we would get with analytic theory and probes and high-tech diagnostic measurements," Horton said.   The simulations also give researchers a more holistic picture of what is needed to improve the tokamak design. Comparing simulations with fusion experiments in nuclear labs around the world helps Horton and other researchers move even closer to this breakthrough energy source. Read the full article on PhysOrg. 

The November issue of the US ITER News Update is available on line. It includes a full review of the status of US procurement for ITER and excerpts from the July 2014 Statement of Ned Sauthoff, director of the US ITER Project Office, before the Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, Space and Technology at the US House of Representatives.