It was in 1968 in Novosibirsk, at
the third Fusion Energy Conference hosted by the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), that Russian Academician Lev Artsimovich from the Kurchatov
Institute presented some amazing results from the T3 Tokamak: a confined plasma
with electron energies up to 1 keV had been achieved, corresponding to
temperatures of more than ten million degrees. The news was received at first
with considerable skepticism, the fusion physicists who were present remember.
But the breaking news proved
to be correct and led to a global shift in nuclear fusion research. The 25th IAEA
Fusion Energy Conference was held in St Petersburg from 13-18 October 2014.
"The development of fusion energy has the potential to change the fate of
mankind," said the ITER Director-General, Osamu Motojima, during the
opening ceremony.
Last
week, 46 years after that historic Novosibirsk meeting, the Fusion Energy Conference returned
again to Russia, this time to St. Petersburg, to take stock of the development
prospects for fusion power. Approximately 1,000 people attended the conference,
representing 39 Member States and 4 international organizations.
Participants had the chance to tour the exhibition and attend the many presentations and posters on scientific and technological developments in fusion. "Saturated Low-n Kink peeling Mode" or "Electron Bernstein Wave Heating" anyone? "The world has moved on and
so has the development of fusion energy," said Alexander Bychkov, the IAEA
Deputy Director-General, in his opening speech. "With ITER under
construction in the south of France and plans for DEMO reactors being developed
around the world, the focus of nuclear fusion research is slowly shifting from
pure research to technology, material science and engineering. This does not
mean that pure research is becoming less important, but that other aspects
increasingly have to be taken into account as well. In the future, when ITER
will start operation and when DEMO reactors are being designed, the questions
of safety, security and even safeguards will grow in importance."
Qualifying ITER as "one of
the most promising projects of our time," the Deputy Director General of
Rosatom, Vyacheslav Pershukov, introduced ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima,
who reported the latest project achievements including the completion of the
lower basemat of the ITER Tokamak Complex and the arrival of the first machine
components on site. "Ninety percent of the project's in-kind procurement
value is now under contract," the Director-General stressed.
A press conference
was held for more than 50 Russian and international journalists at the Efremov
Institute, staged right up aginst huge mockups of busbars, fast discharge and
switching units. Left to right, presenting: IAEA Deputy Director-General
Alexander Bychkov; ITER Director-General Motojima; Oleg Filatov, director of
the Efremov Institute; and Vladimir Vlasenkov, deputy director of ITER Russia. The head of the Russian Domestic
Agency for ITER, Anatoli Krasilnikov, described the broad scope of Russian
contributions to ITER and the good progress achieved to date, and invited
participants to take a technical tour of the Efremov Institute situated on the
outskirts of St. Petersburg. It is here where Russian superconductors for ITER
take shape and plasma-facing components are designed, manufactured and tested
for their heat resistivity. A press conference was held for more than 50
Russian and international journalists, staged right up against huge mockups of busbars, fast discharge and
switching units to help bring home the impressive dimensions of the ITER plant.
When asked for some good arguments against those who question the pace of
construction, Oleg Filatov, director of the Efremov Institute, had one short
answer: "Look around," he said. "Welcome to the argument
factory!"
Although there were no
game-changing results reported at the 25th Fusion Energy Conference, there was
plenty of news that "expands the frontier of fusion," according to
Richard Buttery, Director of the DIID-D experiment in San Diego. The number of
presentations and posters covering progress in fusion materials such as
tungsten reflected the importance of this field of research. Assessments of
technological developments in fusion and studies of plasma behavior under
extreme conditions were also well represented. The ITER Organization, with 7
oral presentations, 24 posters and 54 papers, did its part to contribute to the
expansion of the fusion frontier. Orginial Title: 25th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference: Expanding the frontier of fusion |
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