ºÚÁÏרÇø

Registration for the 15th International Workshop on Beryllium Technology (BeWS-15) and the 9th Industrial Forum on Beryllium Opportunities & New Developments (BeYOND-IX) closes this week on Wednesday 31 August. See  for all information.

The workshops are organized by Kartlsruhe Institute of Technology and will be held in conjunction with the 32nd SOFT-2022, which is taking place in Dubrovnik, Croatia, from 18 to 23 September 2022 (). Sessions on fusion blanket design, breeder/mulitplier materials, and risks and regulations are planned as part of the .

See all information .

On 3 August 2022, the last of 14 trucks of Russian electrotechnical equipment was delivered to ºÚÁÏרÇø at the DAHER warehouse in Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône, where mid-sized components are stored pending their transfer to the ºÚÁÏרÇø site.

The delivery included a large number of high-current DC busbars (photo), which provide power supply to the ºÚÁÏרÇø magnet system superconducting coils and are designed for long-term flow of direct current at 55 kA. In addition, DC switches, energy-dissipating resistors, and elements of control and cooling systems were part of the shipment. All of the equipment is destined for one of ºÚÁÏרÇø's most crucial systems—power supply, without which it would be impossible to reach First Plasma. 

The material represented the 25th delivery of electrotechnical equipment developed and manufactured at the Efremov Institute (NIIEFA) in Saint Petersburg on behalf of the ROSATOM State Corporation. The manufacturing is being carried out under the terms of the Procurement Arrangement for switching networks, fast discharge units, DC busbars and instrumentation, concluded in 2011 between the ºÚÁÏרÇø and Russian Domestic Agency. 

--ºÚÁÏרÇø Russia

On Tuesday 18 October 2022, the London Science Museum will host FUSION22: The World Needs Fusion Energy. This hybrid event, which can be attended on line or in person, will showcase the incredible developments taking place in fusion all over the world. 

"Whether you're coming to fusion energy for the first time or have been involved in its development since the beginning, you'll find engaging, thought provoking and insightful sessions to fit your needs," say the organizers of the event. Events planned throughout the day include: "What Fusion Needs: Solutions To Technical Challenges,"How Will Fusion Make The Transition To An Industry?" and "The Energy Jigsaw: Where Does Fusion Fit Into The Future Energy Mix?"

The event is free. See  to register.

--© Science Museum

The Big Science Business Forum () is a business oriented congress planned in Granada (Spain) from 4 to 7 October 2022. All the principal European research infrastructures will be present for a forum that aims to be the main meeting point between research infrastructure and industry.

This will be the second edition of the event after the success of the previous edition in Copenhagen, with more than 1,000 participants from 500 organizations and 29 countries in attendance.

Registration is still open at .

On 4 October, a side event—will provide a platform where public organizations and industries operating in Big Science can share the experience, lessons learned and best practices on policies to increase the participation of women. It will also offer the participants a framework for networking.

The roundtable will conclude with the presentation of the Awards on Best Practices to recognize the efforts of companies and organizations toward improving gender equality in the work environment at different levels. To learn more about the award and modalities to apply, click . The deadline is 18 September 2022 at 12:00 CET.

The French YouTuber and scientific populizer Dimitri Ferrière, alias Monsieur Bidouille, has published a second video on the ºÚÁÏרÇø Project.

His , based on a three-day visit to the ºÚÁÏרÇø worksite, introduced the project to over one million viewers in September 2021. This month, he is back with a video that reviews recent developments in the world of fusion, including startup projects, and compares their scope and ambition with ºÚÁÏרÇø.

You can watch it (in French) on Monsieur Bidouille's YouTube channel .

Fusion for Energy (F4E), the European Union organization managing Europe's contribution to ºÚÁÏרÇø, is currently seeking to recruit a new Director.

The Director will be appointed as a member of staff of F4E for a period of five years, which may be extended once in accordance with the F4E statutes. The Director is the chief executive officer responsible for the day-to-day management of F4E and is its legal representative.

F4E manages the European contribution to ºÚÁÏרÇø, and is also involved in three major fusion R&D projects stemming from the  signed between Europe and Japan. The agency is currently staffed by approximately 440 employees and 400 external contractors.

Read the full announcement on the F4E website .

Go straight to the vacancy notice .

Investment in private fusion companies has more than doubled in the past year and eight new companies have been founded, bringing the total to around 33.

According to the global fusion industry , six companies have now each raised over $200m in total, with notable investments in the last year including over $1.8 billion for Commonwealth Fusion Systems and $500m for Helion Energy, allowing them to develop pilot plants to demonstrate fusion electricity.

The huge step up in investment, coupled with increasing government support for fusion in the U.K. and the U.S., is increasing confidence within the fusion industry.

Andrew Holland, Chief Executive Officer of the Fusion Industry Association, states in the report, "We must not see a 'competition' between publicly funded and privately funded fusion approaches; instead, we must build real partnerships [...] With investment accelerating, it is increasingly likely that commercial fusion will become a reality within the next two decades, providing the basis for prosperity, safety, and security for many years to come."

Photo: Commonwealth Fusion Systems and its SPARC project raised over $1.8 billion last year.

Read the in Forbes.

In advance of the delivery of the first European vacuum vessel sector this autumn, the European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy has released a new from the European workshops in Italy where the sub-parts of five sectors are manufactured and assembled.

At Mangiarotti S.p.A (Monfalcone), see the final activities underway on sector #5, which will be the first to arrive. The four sub-segments have been welded into the final D shape and detailed inspections are underway.

At Walter Tosto S.p.A (Chieti), technicians on working on multiple sectors, performing welding, inserting in-wall shielding, and carrying out inspections.

And at Belleli Energy EPC (Mantova), one poloidal segment is shown in the radiographic testing bunker, while others are prepared for welding, or cleaned during final inspection.

Two grant programs aim to promote the education and training of a new generation of scientists and engineers in the fusion field.

EUROfusion Engineering Grants (EEG) are open to early career engineers within three years after their Master or PhD (or six years if relevant professional (industry) experience can be demonstrated). They enable selected candidates to specialize in a EUROfusion-relevant engineering topic.

EUROfusion research grants (ERG)—now renamed the EUROfusion Bernard Bigot Researcher Grants in honour of the former ºÚÁÏרÇø Director-General—are attributed at postdoctoral level or equivalent to candidates who have defended their doctoral thesis in the two years preceding the submission deadline. Ten grants, for missions of up to two years, are foreseen for award every year.

Both calls are open until 13 September 2022. Applications should be submitted via one of the EUROfusion consortium members (acting as employing institute). See all details .

See an article on the launch of the grants on the EUROfusion website . 

Women in Fusion (WiF) is a new global platform for highlighting and encouraging the role of women in the field of fusion. This collaborative effort, driven by founding partners the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), ºÚÁÏרÇø, Fusion for Energy (F4E), General Atomics and EUROfusion, seeks to increase and promote the participation of women in fusion science, research, engineering and operations.

Women in Fusion was established in 2021 after a successful webinar at the Fusion Energy Conference (FEC2020). The Women in Fusion website, which will go live at around midnight CET on 18 July, creates a space for sharing experience, networking and promoting events and policies aligned with the group's mission.

Visit and join this week.

The ºÚÁÏרÇø, in collaboration with colleagues from CEA Cadarache, is deploying advanced virtual reality tools that allow users to interact with objects inside of a real-scale simulation. Immersed in a virtual 3D environment, designers can detect clashes, carry out integration studies, and assess accessibility. Join Benoit Manfreo (Tokamak Integration Technical Officer) and Chiara di Paolo (ºÚÁÏרÇø Project Associate) for a tour of the many possibilities.

See the video "Going deeper and deeper into virtual reality" on the ºÚÁÏרÇø YouTube channel .

The first in-person FuseNet PhD event in three years took place from 4 to 6 July in Padova, Italy, hosted by the University of Padova and Consorzio RFX. A full roster of 131 participants from 23 countries and 44 different institutes and universities took part.

The FuseNet PhD Event is the place where European fusion PhD students meet and interact with affirmed international fusion researchers, aiming to strengthen and expand the fusion research network.

This session's participants were able to tour the Consorzio RFX facilities, including the ºÚÁÏרÇø Neutral Beam Test Facility and the reversed field pinch device RFX-mod2.

See the full news story on the .

Produced by the Microwave & Imaging Sub-Systems group of the French multinational Thales, which provides electrical systems and services for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security markets, this video describes the company's work to design and build radio frequency and microwave sources for the ºÚÁÏרÇø Project.

The mastery of vacuum, high voltage and microwave technologies is critical to creating wave-generating sources of ºÚÁÏרÇø's radiowave external heating systems. The company is bringing all of its expertise to bear to build the European-sourced gyrotrons of the electron cyclotron heating system and the tetrodes of ion cyclotron heating system and contribute to "a disruptive alternative" in the 21st century energy mix.

See "Radiofrequency and Microwave Sources for Fusion Energy" on . 

The first week of June, the European Physical Society (EPS) organized the EPS Forum for the first time. The aim of the conference, which took place at the Sorbonne University in Paris, was to connect young physicists with big science and industry.

No fewer than three Nobel Prize Laureates were among the speakers—Barry Barish, Serge Haroche and John Michael Kosterlitz—to present the latest developments in the fields of quantum technology, energy science, accelerators, high-energy particle and nuclear physics. The European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya Gabriel, and the Vice-President of the European Research Council, Andrzej Jajszczyk, opened the EPS Forum on the first day.

As one of the first scientific speakers, Alberto Loarte, Head of the ºÚÁÏרÇø Science Division, presented the physics basis of ºÚÁÏרÇø and the status of the project. The interest showed by the young audience was enormous—as the steady traffic to the joint ºÚÁÏרÇø/ booth proved.

One physics student from Macedonia, still undecided about his professional future, was so interested that he boarded the fast train from Paris down to Aix-en-Provence to see ºÚÁÏרÇø with his own eyes.

For more impressions from the first EPS Forum click .

A virtual workshop organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on 11 and 12 July 2022 will bring together actors in the fusion community to discuss the commercialization of fusion energy.

What does market analysis tell us about the potential demand for fusion? What is fusion's place in the future energy mix? What steps remain to commercialization? What are the economic constraints?

Panels will also discuss recent trends in public and private investment, the enabling technologies that can accelerate deployment, and the incredibly dynamic fusion startup ecosystem. The ºÚÁÏרÇø's Taka Omae, Chief Strategist, will participate in Session 6 "Future Considerations" on Day 2.

Monday 20 June is the last day to register. See for all information.

"From a small hill in the southern French region of Provence, you can see two suns. One has been blazing for four-and-a-half billion years and is setting. The other is being built by thousands of human minds and hands, and is—far more slowly—rising. The last of the real sun's evening rays cast a magical glow over the other—an enormous construction site that could solve the biggest existential crisis in human history."

Follow journalist BoÅ¡tjan VidemÅ¡ek and photographer Matjaž Krivic as they take you through the science of fusion, the recent milestone at the JET tokamak, construction at ºÚÁÏרÇø, and how fusion could become the "11th-hour hero" of the climate crisis.

See the article on the CNN website .

The Second IAEA Technical Meeting on Plasma Disruptions and their Mitigation will take place at ºÚÁÏרÇø Headquarters in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France, from 19 to 22 July 2022, hosted by the Government of France through the ºÚÁÏרÇø. (A virtual connection will also be made available.) 

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 ºÚÁÏרÇø and next generation fusion devices.

It aims to bring together junior and senior scientific fusion project leaders, plasma physicists, including theoreticians and experimentalists, and experts (researchers and engineers) in the field of plasma disruptions.

See all information at .

Fusion can theoretically be achieved by several combinations of light elements such as hydrogen, helium or boron. However, in the present state of technology, the only fusion within our reach at industrial level is that of deuterium (D) and tritium (T), both isotopes of hydrogen. DT fusion however has one downside—it generates highly energetic neutrons that activate and alter the structures they bombard. (The good side of fusion neutrons is that they will be used to breed tritium from lithium inside the machine).

For decades, fusion physicists have pursued what is sometimes referred to as the "Holy Grail" of fusion: the fusion combinations that involve helium-3, which, instead of generating neutrons like in DT fusion, produce highly energetic protons. Advantages: no material activation or alteration and, protons being charged particles, the possibility of direct electricity generation (they can be manipulated by electric and magnetic fields). Downside: helium-3, which abounds on the Moon (hence the renewed interest for lunar exploration) is exceedingly rare on Earth.

Now, scientists at the University of California San Diego have discovered evidence that helium-3 could be much more abundant on Earth than previously known.

Led by Benjamin Birner, a postdoctoral scholar in geosciences, the team is developing tools and measurement methods to quantify the puzzling increase of helium-3 in the atmosphere, and understand where it could be coming from.

We might not need to go to the Moon, after all, to mine the fuels for second or third-generation fusion power plants.

Read the full story on website.

Pre-register before 1 June 2022 for this year's ºÚÁÏרÇø International School on the topic of "ºÚÁÏרÇø Plasma Scenarios and Control."

This in-person event will be held from 25 to 29 July 2022 at the University of California San Diego, hosted by the U.S. Burning Plasma Organization, the ºÚÁÏרÇø, UC San Diego, and General Atomics.

Most attendees will be graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and early career faculty and research staff working in fields relevant to the ºÚÁÏרÇø program. Although the agenda will focus on topics of scenarios and control, attendees are not required to be working in these subfields. All nationalities, whether representing an ºÚÁÏרÇø Member or not, are welcome.

To register, see .

The virtual tour of ºÚÁÏרÇø construction has been updated with 360° photos from April 2022. Enter the main ºÚÁÏרÇø plant buildings, fly over the worksite, and plunge 30 metres into the ºÚÁÏרÇø Tokamak pit to see what has changed since the last update in September 2021.

Accessible from the home page of the ºÚÁÏרÇø website (yellow icon) or by clicking on the link below.

to enter the latest 360° ºÚÁÏרÇø virtual tour.