Galeria

 The edition of the Geography textbook “France et Europe” by Les Edition Magnard reports on Europe’s contribution to the ITER project.

Just as French students are getting ready to return to school and face another year of different subjects ranging from mathematics to history, Les Editions Magnard have published a new edition for their Geography text book “France et Europe” aiming to raise awareness on the Europe’ s geopolitical goals and long term strategy by highlighting amongst other subjects, the ITER project.
The section reporting on the European Union starts by presenting a list of indicators about its economic competitiveness vis à vis other key players such as the US, China and Japan. Special reference is made to the EU’s leadership in development policy given the fact that it is the top contributor in this domain. Its institutional configuration is described together with the new positions created by the Lisbon Treaty.

And while the above subjects may seem fairly obvious and in line with previous publications, this year’s text book includes a new entry: fusion!

Europe’s contribution to ITER through F4E is highlighted by underlining its commitment to being a pioneer in fusion and striving to deliver a better energy mix. The role of F4E is briefly described and its brochure is included as part of the chapter’s illustrations.

The opportunity to reach out to so many young people through textbooks on the progress of the ITER experiment and its contribution towards the long term energy mix can help them evaluate options and develop opinions.

Only future will tell if tomorrow’s citizens will be fusion supporters.

Source: F4E

THE European Commission has drafted a plan ensuring cash-strapped international nuclear fusion project ITER would have funding of Euro EUR2.573 billion from 2014 to 2018. 

European Union (EU) ministers in December approved emergency spending for ITER to see the France-based research project through 2012 and 2013, and now the Commission is looking ahead for four more years' money.

It has proposed the creation of a 'Supplementary Research Programme', funded via the EU's nuclear energy wing Euratom, which would ensure Europe kept its funding bargain for ITER with the project's six other parties: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the USA. ITER's aim is to produce a fully-functioning nuclear fusion reactor capable or commercial replication and development. However, with EU budgets under pressure, and ITER's projected costs spiralling beyond the initial EU cost contribution estimate of EUR 6.6 billion, the EU has struggled to find the necessary budgets.

Asking EU ministers to back the new plan, a European Commission note said: "An important feature of the construction of ITER is the extreme technical challenge. With its unprecedented scale and complexity, it represents a major undertaking with contributions in civil, mechanical, electrical and nuclear engineering." And it added that ITER and other large scale EU projects of interest (such as the Galileo global positioning satellite project), ITER was "disproportionately expensive in relation to the small EU budget and they tend to overrun initial cost projections."

Source: utilityweek.co.uk

Using a heating system, physicists have succeeded for the first time in preventing the development of instabilities in an efficient alternative way relevant to a future nuclear fusion reactor. It’s an important step forward in the effort to build the future ITER reactor.

 Scientists have achieved a milestone: they have managed to stop the growth of instabilities inside a nuclear fusion reactor. How? Here’s a look at this energy source, which despite being challenging to control, is nevertheless extremely promising.

Nuclear fusion is an attempt to reproduce the energy of the Sun in an Earth-based reactor system. When gas is heated to several million degrees, it becomes plasma. Sometimes in the plasma, an instability will appear and grow large enough to perturb the plasma, making it vibrate despite the presence of the magnetic field in which it is contained. If the plasma touches the walls of the reactor, it will cool rapidly and create large electromagnetic forces within the structure of the machine.

The challenge is to reduce the instabilities deep within in the interior of the plasma so that they don’t amplify, while at the same time allowing the reactor to continue to function normally. Thus it is necessary to work within the specific configuration of these fusion reactors, where the plasma is strongly confined by a magnetic field. By adjusting an antenna that emits electromagnetic radiation, physicists from EPFL’s Center for Research in Plasma Physics were able to quench the instabilities when they appear, in the precise region where they are forming, and without perturbing the rest of the installation.

 From theory to practice

 The physicists first conducted simulations to verify the extent to which specific radiation frequencies and locations of application would suppress the growth of instabilities. Then they carried out tests to confirm their calculations. The beauty of their approach is that they were able to use antennas that are used as part of the system to heat the plasma, and that are already present in the Joint European Torus (JET), the largest reactor currently in use. Surprisingly, the simulations and the tests showed that heating and instability suppression can be combined, by aiming the radiation slightly off-center in the plasma.

The next step will be to add a detector system that will make it possible to neutralize instabilities in real time over longer time periods. These improvements can then be implemented in the ITER fusion reactor, currently in development in Southern France.

More information: Control of magnetohydrodynamic stability by phase space engineering of energetic ions in tokamak plasmas, J.P. Graves, et al,Nature Commun. *3*, 624 (2012). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1622

Source:  physorg.com

IPP Greifswald, Germany: Its outer shell completed, the Wendelstein 7-X peers out from its yellow scaffold cage like a giant alien insect. Even though its famous surreally-curved coils are now hidden from view, the W7-X advanced stellarator still preserves its image as an unwordly, futuristic machine.

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Two European projects – ITER and DEMO - propose development of fusion reactors that are economically viable; this work depends on the development of new structural materials capable of withstanding damage by irradiation and elevated temperatures resulting from the fusion reaction.

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