FPN06-73

Matsuda Describes Broader Fusion Activities

October 29, 2006

As part of the agreement to construct ITER in France, Japan and the European Union agreed to "joint implementation" of a broader set of fusion activities in the territory of the "non-host" on a time frame compatible with the ITER construction phase. In a paper presented at the the IAEA 21st Fusion Energy Conference in Chengdu, China on October 17, Shinzaburo Matsuda (Japan Atomic Energy Agency) stated a number of meetings have taken place between Japan and EU officials on this subject and that "agreement has been made by the negotiators on October 2006."

Matsuda said that the broader approach activities comprise three projects: (1) engineering validation and engineering design activities for the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF/EVEDA), (2) establishment of an International Fusion Energy Research Center (IFERC) that would be a Demo design and R&D coordination center, a computational simulation center, and an ITER remote experimentation center, and (3) a Satellite Tokamak Programme that would upgrade the existing JT-60 tokamak to an advanced superconducting tokamak to be known as JT-60SA.

Japan and the EU have agreed on a management structure to implement the activities, he said. Other ITER Parties could propose to join the venture by submitting proposals to the Project Leader and Steering Committee that would head up the venture. Matsuda said the participation of other ITER Parties "will be quite welcome." The total 10-year expenditure on the venture was expected to be approximately 680 million 2005 Euros, to be shared equally between Japan and the EU.

Matsuda's talk, as well as many other talks from the Conference, are posted at http://fire.pppl.gov