What’s New

The Russian Domestic Agency for ITER reports that two shipments recently left factories in Saint Petersburg and Podolsk for the ITER Project.

The first shipment contains correction coil busbars—the components that connect magnet coils to their power sources—as well as flexible links for busbar interconnections. These components were transported by truck (pictured) from the Efremov Institute (NIIEFA) in Saint Petersburg directly to the ITER site. The fabrication and supply of switching equipment, busbars and energy-absorbing resistors for the power supply and the protection of the ITER superconducting magnetic system add up to the most expensive, and one of the most complicated, systems falling within the scope of in-kind procurement from Russia (25 systems in all). In accordance with the busbar Procurement Arrangement, NIIEFA will manufacture and ship approximately 5.4 km of busbars with a total weight exceeding 500 tons.

In the second shipment, four lengths of poloidal field superconductor (two unit lengths of 720 metres and two of 414 metres) were loaded onto trucks at the Cable Institute (JSC VNIIKP) in Podolsk for delivery to the European jacketing line at Criotec (Chivasso, Italy). The conductors are destined for the ITER poloidal field coil magnet system.

-- Alexander Petrov, ITER Russia

On 4 December the Programme Manager of EUROfusion, Tony Donné, visited ITER and spoke to staff in the ITER auditorium.

EUROfusion is a consortium of 29 research organisations and universities from 26 European countries plus Switzerland that is collaborating to achieve Europe's Fusion Roadmap, which outlines the most efficient way to realize fusion electricity by 2050. ITER is the key facility on the road to fusion energy, and Professor Donné stressed in his talk that everything possible must be done to support ITER construction, optimize ITER operation and ensure minimal delay to the next-phase device, DEMO.

Professor Donné also advocated the extension of the European tokamak JET under an international regime in support of ITER. The prolonged use of JET as a risk-mitigation device for ITER and for the training of a generation of scientists, engineers and technicians for ITER could give the world fusion community access to deuterium-tritium plasmas approximately 10 years before ITER.

Read more about EUROfusion, Europe's Fusion Roadmap, and JET.