FPN08-17

ITER Update

April 5, 2008

The ITER Organization and the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN have signed a Cooperation Agreement. The Agreement provides the opportunity for CERN and ITER to co-operate not only in the fields of technology such as superconductors, magnets, cryogenics, control and data acquisition and complex civil engineering but also in administrative domains such as finance, purchasing and human resources, including software programmes.

The Agreement was signed by Kaname Ikeda, Director General of the ITER Organization and Robert Aymar, Director General of CERN, in the presence of senior staff from both organisations. Kaname Ikeda said "The wealth of knowledge acquired by CERN over its many years of operation will make an important contribution to ITER's ability to make rapid progress". Robert Aymar, expressed his pleasure, not only as CERN Director General, but also as someone previously involved in the ITER project from its inception, that "CERN is very happy to work with ITER in common areas of science and technology."

The Cooperation Arrangement has been concluded for a five year period and enters into force immediately.

On 11 March a team from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) led by Larry Baylor, Steve Meitner and Steve Combs successfully produced the first deuterium ice using a twin-screw extruder. This new prototype extruder is 1/5 the size of the device that will be required for ITER, which will be capable of injecting an infinite number of pellets into the ITER plasma. It is the first step towards a pellet injector feeding particles deep inside the plasma.

The pellet injection system has two main experimental objectives: deep plasma fuelling to control plasma density and burn, and pacing of the edge instabilities called ELMs. The ITER pellet injection system is based on the gas gun technology originally developed in the US and continuous screw extruder technology originally developed in Russia. The new twin screw system developed at Oak Ridge will be capable of producing ice at a throughput of more than 100 Pa m3/sec.

The ITER team continues to build up rapidly at Cadarache. In March, the ITER staff will count 258 and soon this will reach 300. This has meant that another set of buildings has had to be erected so that the team is now spread over four locations.

On March 18th a U.S. congressional delegation lead by Representative Rick Boucher from Virginia visited the ITER site. Other members of the delegation were Representative Fred Upton from Michigan, Representative Tammy Baldwin from Wisconsin, Representative Albert Wynn from Maryland, Representative Nick Rahall from West Virginia, and Representative Dan Lungren from California. The Department of Energy was represented by Under Secretary Bud Albright.

Kaname Ikeda, Norbert Holtkamp and Ned Sauthoff from US ITER gave presentations to the delegation followed by questions and discussion on the future of U.S funding. On behalf of the delegation, Congressman Boucher thanked the Director General for the visit and expressed the delegation's support for ITER. After the presentations the group was taken to the ITER worksite. As bulldozers and scrapers went about the work of levelling the huge ITER platform, Jean Michel Bottereau from Agence ITER France gave an overview of the worksite preparation and Jerry Sovka explained the massive effort needed to build the ITER scientific buildings.

At a State Banquet in honour of the President of France hosted by Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle on 26 March, the Chairman of the ITER Council, Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, found himself seated next to the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Sir Chris, who believes that he was invited at the request of the French Government because he chairs the ITER Council, said: "I hope that, during a general discussion of energy issues with the Prime Minister, I succeeded in conveying the enormous potential of fusion".