The future of the world’s largest operational fusion research facility has been secured with a new contract signed between the UK and the European Commission.

A contract extension for the world’s largest fusion research facility, Joint European Torus, has been signed by the UK and the European Commission

The contract extension will secure at least €100m in additional inward investment from the EU over the next two years.

The news brings reassurance for the more than 500 staff at site in Culham, near Oxford.

Staff at the Joint European Torus (JET) facility in Oxfordshire undertake research in the latest technologies aimed at providing clean, safe, inexhaustible energy. The new contract guarantees its operations until the end of 2020 regardless of the EU Exit situation, and secures at least €100m in additional inward investment from the EU over the next two years.

Science Minister Chris Skidmore said:

"Having made my first speech at Culham, I know how hardworking and dedicated UK Atomic Energy Authority staff are, which is why I’m pleased to announce today’s agreement, which is great news for the future of scientific research in Oxfordshire, the UK and Europe.
Extending this contract means cutting-edge and world-leading fusion research can continue in this country, which I know will be a welcome reassurance to the hundreds of workers at Culham.
Science has no borders and as we leave the EU, this kind of international collaboration remains at the heart of our modern Industrial Strategy to maintain the UK’s position as a world leader in research and innovation".

JET is operated by the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Culham Science Centre, near Oxford. Scientists from 28 European countries use it to conduct research into the potential for carbon-free fusion energy in the future, through work coordinated by the EUROfusion consortium which manages and funds European fusion research activities on behalf of Euratom.

The future of the facility has been under discussion since 2017, as its work is covered by the Euratom Treaty, which the UK Government intends to leave as part of the process of leaving the EU.

This new contract provides reassurance for over 500 staff at JET, including many from outside the UK. It also means JET can conduct a series of vital fusion tests planned for 2020. These tests will serve as a ‘dress rehearsal’ for the new international experimental fusion reactor, ITER, currently being built in southern France.

Prof Ian Chapman, CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, said:

"The extension to the contract is excellent news for both EU and UK science. JET has been a shining example of scientific co-operation between EU members, and this news means that these mutually beneficial collaborations will continue, allowing us to do essential experiments on the path to delivering fusion power".

Prof Tony Donné, Programme Manager of EUROfusion, added:

"A heavy weight has been lifted off our shoulders. This is extraordinarily good news for EUROfusion and the European fusion community as a whole. We can now continue to work on the realisation of fusion energy together with the indispensable experience of our British partner".

Contacts:

Howard Wheeler, Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Ten adres pocztowy jest chroniony przed spamowaniem. Aby go zobaczyć, konieczne jest włączenie w przeglądarce obsługi JavaScript. / 0207 215 2748

Nick Holloway, United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, Ten adres pocztowy jest chroniony przed spamowaniem. Aby go zobaczyć, konieczne jest włączenie w przeglądarce obsługi JavaScript. / 01235 466232

Notes to Editors

Fusion energy research

Fusion research aims to copy the process which powers the Sun for a new large-scale source of clean energy here on Earth. When light atomic nuclei fuse together to form heavier ones, a large amount of energy is released. To do this, fuel is heated to extreme temperatures, hotter than the centre of the Sun, forming a plasma in which fusion reactions take place. A commercial power station will use the energy produced by fusion reactions to generate electricity.

Nuclear fusion has huge potential as a long-term energy source that is environmentally responsible (with no carbon emissions) and inherently safe, with abundant and widespread fuel resources (the raw materials are found in seawater and the Earth’s crust).

Researchers at Culham are developing a type of fusion reactor known as a ‘tokamak’ – a magnetic chamber in which plasma is heated and controlled. The research is focused on preparing for the international tokamak experiment ITER, now being built in southern France. ITER – due to start up in 2025 – is designed to show that fusion can work on the scale of a power plant, and if successful should lead to electricity from fusion being on the grid by around 2050.

Joint European Torus (JET)

The Joint European Torus, based at Culham Science Centre, UK, is the central research facility of the European fusion programme. It is the largest and most powerful fusion experiment in the world. JET is collectively used under EUROfusion management by more than 40 European laboratories. JET was the first fusion device to perform controlled nuclear fusion (in 1991), holds the world record for fusion power and is the only tokamak that can test the fusion fuel mix (deuterium and tritium – two isotopes of hydrogen) expected to be used in commercial reactors. Today, its primary task is to prepare for the construction and operation of ITER, acting as a test bed for ITER technologies and plasma operating scenarios.

UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA)

The UK Atomic Energy Authority carries out fusion energy research on behalf of the UK Government at Culham Science Centre near Abingdon. It is also developing Culham as a location of hi-tech research and business, with around 40 tenant companies now on site.

UKAEA oversees Britain’s fusion programme, headed by the MAST Upgrade (Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak) experiment. It also hosts the world’s largest fusion research facility, JET (Joint European Torus), which it operates for European scientists under a contract with the European Commission. Website: www.gov.uk/ukaea Twitter: @fusionenergy

EUROfusion

EUROfusion’s mission is to pave the way for fusion power reactors.

Currently, 30 research organisations and universities from 26 European Union member states plus Switzerland and Ukraine are part of the consortium. In addition, well over 150 universities contribute to the programme. The Consortium has received funding from the Euratom research and training programme 2014-2018 and 2019-2020 under grant agreement No 633053.

Website: www.euro-fusion.org Twitter: @fusionincloseup

Source: www.gov.uk

Photo: JET internal vessel view; Source: EUROfusion; Photographer: Christopher Roux (CEA-IRFM); CC BY 4.0 licence

The Budgetary Control Committee of the European Parliament, chaired by German MEP Ingeborg Graessle, organized a public hearing on the added value of EU funding on 21 January 2019. The hearing was moderated by its Vice-Chair, Czech MEP Martina Dlabajova who is also the rapporteur in the current discharge procedure of EU agencies and joint undertakings (including F4E) for the 2017 budget. In the framework of the competitiveness panel of the hearing, MEP Dlabajova invited the F4E Director to report on success stories that the EU contribution to the ITER project brings to many European companies and research centres involved in the manufacturing of the high-tech components for this big science project.

Johannes Schwemmer, F4E Director, kicked off the panel discussion with a short presentation on fusion and its benefits, and presented the international partnership to build ITER, one of the largest high-technology projects in modern history. The F4E Director explained the role of F4E, as the domestic agency for ITER, and highlighted the different projects underway to make fusion energy a reality.

Massimo Garribba, Director at the Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy, picked up the torch to underline the key role of ITER in the European roadmap for the realization of fusion energy and the important milestone of 60% completion of the project in its drive to reach first plasma by the end of 2025. The Commission director insisted on the significant economic impact of ITER which over the period of 2008-2017 has produced almost 4,8 billion euro in Gross Value Added and almost 34,000 job years, through awarding over 900 contracts and grants in 24 EU countries worth 4,5 billion Euro. European companies report that working on ITER generates a new knowledge base, offers new business opportunities and increases their competitiveness and growth, helping to create additional jobs.

In order to highlight the role of EU industry in the construction of ITER and the benefits arising from their participation in such an international endeavour, two representatives shared their experiences.

Prof. C.J.M. Heemskerk from HiT, a small company in the Netherlands, presented an unexpected but important spin-off generated during the development of the remoting handling systems for the maintenance of ITER, which will be needed once the reactor becomes operational. The R&D in this area has led to a prototype robot ROSE (Remotely Operated SErvice Robot) providing home care support for elderly people and those in need. Prof. Heemskerk added that their involvement in ITER has given the company “an exposure to an international community” and has strengthened their competitiveness as “we have to be on our (their) toes” to fend off potential competitors around the world. In addition, the company has managed to gain contracts from international clients which would have not been possible “without our involvement in ITER”.

Giovanni Grasso from ASG Superconductors, an Italian company specialized in superconducting magnet technology has worked for many big science organizations such as CERN and ITER. The superconducting technology which has been developed over the years for fusion has led to a number of spin-offs in sectors such as health (magnetic resonance scanners and health therapies). The most recent important spin-off from the ITER work consists of a superconducting cable which may be used for energy transmissions over last distances across Europe.

In the discussion that followed, a number of MEPs took the floor to highlight the benefits for European industry arising from their participation to the project. Italian MEP Flavio Zanonato underlined the important industrial investment realized in Padova in building a Neutral Beam Test facility to develop the most challenging heating system for ITER.

In concluding the competitiveness panel of the European added value hearing, MEP Dlabajová thanked the participants and highlighted “the real and tangible added value” coming from the EU support of the ITER project.

Source: Fusion for Energy

Photo: Credit © ITER Organization, http://www.iter.org/

W październiku 2018 roku Nagrodę Nobla z fizyki otrzymali Arthur Ashkin oraz Gérard Mourou i Donna Strickland za badania w zakresie optyki wykorzystujące w przełomowy sposób światło generowane laserem.

Do Arthura Ashkina trafiła połowa nagrody za wykorzystanie wiązki laserowej jako pęsety do obserwacji i manipulowania bardzo małymi obiektami, takimi jak cząsteczki, molekuły, bakterie i wirusy bez ich uszkodzenia. Wiązka lasera podczerwonego może powodować przemieszczanie się małych obiektów w stronę centrum wiązki i tam ich utrzymywanie. Dzięki temu możliwe jest ich badanie i modyfikowanie.

Gérard Mourou i Donna Strickland otrzymali po 25% nagrody za opracowanie metody wzmacniania „świergoczących” impulsów laserowych zwanej CPA (chirped pulse amplification). W metodzie tej bardzo krótki impuls laserowy najpierw jest rozciągany w czasie w celu zmniejszenia jego mocy i wzmocnienia bez uszkadzania prętów wzmacniających. Następnie wydłużony i wzmocniony impuls jest optycznie komprymowany. Metoda CPA pozwala uzyskiwać impulsy laserowe o czasie trwania kilku femtosekund (10^‑15 s). Można też osiągać gęstości mocy ponad 10²² W/cm² po zogniskowaniu wiązki laserowej na plamce o średnicy ~0,01 mm. Lasery wielkiej mocy o ultrakrótkim impulsie są stosowane do badania rekordowo krótkich procesów w obszarze fizyki relatywistycznej, fizyki atomowej, biologii molekularnej i w mikrometrycznych technologiach materiałowych.

Zasada działania metody CPA

Więcej informacji na stronie www.nobelprize.org

Ilustracja: Niklas Elmehed / Nobel Media

 Who would turn down an invitation to “fly to Mars” if representatives from ESA, NASA and Poland’s Space Industry Association acted as the captains on board? Imagine if your co-passengers were some of the most promising scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers and business developers working in Poland? It sounds like a-one-of-a-kind mission to Mars inviting experts to step to the unknown and use their skills to survive.

Science and technology breakthroughs have been woven in the fabric of Poland and its appetite for doing business makes it a perfect candidate for big science projects. For this reason, members of the big science community coming from F4E, CERN, the European Space Observatory (ESO) and the European Spalation Source (ESS) contributed to a two day-event, organised by the Wrocław Technology Park on 23-24 November, to explain the state of play of the various scientific collaborations and the business opportunities in each of them.  A fine mix of keynote speeches, workshops, presentations, and business to business (B2B) meetings gave the possibility to at least 400 participants to receive updates and get in touch with those running the projects.

“By bringing together big science projects we help companies to learn more about the emerging technical needs, offer them incentives to export their know-how and make them think big” explains Leonardo Biagioni, F4E’s Head of Procurement. “The truth of the matter is that big projects are made of smaller ones and if a company has the skills it can surely find its way to participate. And this is what we are here to do” explains Benjamin Perier from F4E’s Market Intelligence Group. A number of companies expressed an interest in the ITER domains using robotics, aerospace technologies and the testing of new materials. For those who felt that they may not have the financial capital to target projects of such scale, a representative of the European Investment Bank (EIB) was there to present the different financial instruments that could trigger off investment and growth.

The value of gathering different projects under the same roof helps all parties to be more aware of who does what and how much they share in terms of business incentives and technology transfers. For those wishing to become more familiar with the universe of collaborative procurement for research infrastructures, a Big Science Business Forum is planned to take place on 26-28 February 2018 in Copenhagen.

To view some of the event’s highlights click here.

Source: fusionforenergy.europa.eu

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2017 was divided, one half awarded to Rainer Weiss, the other half jointly to Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves".

POPULAR SCIENCE BACKGROUND

On 14 September 2015, the LIGO detectors in the USA saw space vibrate with gravitational waves for the very first time. Although the signal was extremely weak when it reached Earth, it is already promising a revolution in astrophysics. Gravitational waves are an entirely new way of following the most violent events in space and testing the limits of our knowledge. The gravitational waves that have now been observed were created in a ferocious collision between two black holes, more than a thousand million years ago. Albert Einstein was right again. A century had passed since gravitational waves were predicted by his general theory of relativity, but he had always been doubtful whether they could ever be captured.

LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, is a collaborative project with over one thousand researchers from more than twenty countries. Together, they have realised a vision that is almost fifty years old. The 2017 Nobel Laureates have, with their enthusiasm and determination, each been invaluable to the success of LIGO. Pioneers Rainer Weiss and Kip S. Thorne, together with Barry C. Barish, the scientist and leader who brought the project to completion, have ensured that more than four decades of effort led to gravitational waves finally being observed.

Rumours began to circulate around five months before the international research group had finished refining its calculations, but they did not dare to announce their findings until 11 February 2016. The LIGO researchers set several records with their very first discovery; besides the first ever observation of gravitational waves, the entire course of events was the first indication that space contains medium-sized black holes of between 30 and 60 solar masses and that they can merge. For a short moment, the gravitational radiation from the colliding black holes was many times stronger than the collected light of all the stars in the visible universe.

Source: www.nobelprize.org

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