Alexander Victorovich Bychkov joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Energy in February 2011. Before he joined the Agency, Mr Bychkov worked on molten salt chemistry, the chemistry and technology of actinides and nuclear fuel, and all aspects of fast reactor fuel cycles. At the recent IAEA Fusion Energy Conference in St. Petersburg, Newsline had the opportunity to talk to him about the Agency's involvement in fusion research and development.

Mr Bychkov, can it be said that nuclear fusion has been part of the IAEA's mission since the very beginning?

That is correct; the IAEA is proud to have played a constructive role in the history of nuclear fusion research. The Agency's motto "Atoms for Peace," coined by US President Dwight Eisenhower in his address to the UN General Assembly on 8 December 1953, has always had a special meaning for nuclear fusion: the obligation to work for the preservation of peace itself, and at the same time to work towards the peaceful use of nuclear fusion for the generation of energy.

The first Fusion Energy Conference (FEC) took place in 1961, in Salzburg, Austria. Seven years later, in 1968, the fusion community convened in Novosibirsk where some breaking news from the T3 Tokamak became part of fusion history. In 2014, for its 25th edition, the FEC returned to Russia, this time to St. Petersburg. What are your thoughts about this?

The 2014 FEC conference was only the second of 25 to take place in Russia. As you mentioned, at the 1968 conference in Novosibirsk some amazing results from the Russian T3 Tokamak (Kurchatov Institute) were presented—a confined plasma with electron energies up to 1 keV, corresponding to temperatures of more than 10 million degrees. This surprising and crucial result led to a global shift in nuclear fusion research towards the use of tokamaks. In Europe, this ultimately led to the design and construction of the Joint European Torus, JET, while in the US it led to the TFTR tokamak and in Japan to the JT60 tokamak. These machines, in turn, became the technological predecessors of today´s ITER Project.

And yes, St. Petersburg is a very special place for us Russians as it was the setting to three Russian revolutions: the revolution in 1905 and the uprisings in 1917 (to me these were three revolutions). So, perhaps we can see the 25th FEC conference as a symbolic event, where scientists and engineers met to talk about a technological revolution.

What is the IAEA's current involvement in fusion?

We are not in the position to play a leading role in the scientific and technical development, but we collect and distribute information and we facilitate collaboration. For example the FEC conference that the Agency organizes every two years is the largest of its kind. Likewise, we publish the leading journal on fusion, the Nuclear Fusion Journal, and offer an important resource to researchers, the FENDL database. We organize some research activities through our Coordinated Research Projects and carry out training activities, for example joint experiments at a tokamak—in particular for researchers from developing countries. We try to ensure that developing countries remain in touch with developments in fusion research by making sure that their researchers can participate in conferences and meetings.

Do you see interest from other nations to join the fusion community?

Yes, a number of developing countries attended the 25th FEC conference, such as Nigeria or Thailand, who as yet do not have fusion programs. These countries have an interest in fusion technology and, in view of the current effort to build up the educational level in many of these countries, some will join the fusion community sooner or later.

The IAEA is also very much engaged in activities for DEMO, the next step after ITER. How do you see the IAEA's role in this development effort?

Our Member States underline every year that fusion is considered as the future of nuclear power. While we do not yet consider fusion as a real part of the energy mix before 2050, it is part of our projections of nuclear power.

With regard to DEMO we are increasing our activities. We have started a new DEMO Workshop Series that brings together about 80 experts from around the world once a year. For the future we hope that the Agency can play a similar constructive role for DEMO as we have for ITER—even if DEMO will not be a single project, but rather a collection of projects. We do see it as part of our mandate to help make fusion power a reality.

Source: ITER

​From 20-22 May 2015 the ENERGY, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Conference and Exhibition (EST-Energy) will be taking place at the Karlsruhe Convention Center in Germany. 

The conference will focus on all energy-related topics with an emphasis on renewable and CO2-free forms of energy. 

The establishment of a sustainable, reliable and achievable energy system needs a worldwide cross-linked effort. Research, development and implementation of innovations by both the scientific community as well as industry is necessary. EST-Energy 2015 aims to provide a platform for the most recent research findings and allow participants to network with other researchers and engineers from all over the world. 

Fusion is one of the themes of the conference. A call for abstracts has been launched for topics that fall in the following categories: ITER- and DEMO-related issues, the development strategies of new fusion devices (W7-X, JT-60 SA... ), and technical issues that may be of interest to others. 

The deadline for paper abstracts is 1 December 2014. All information can be found on the conference website.

source: ITER.org, Energy Science Technology

Some 135 researchers, graduate students, and staff members from PPPL joined 1,500 research scientists from around the world at the 56th annual meeting of the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics Conference from Oct. 27 to Oct. 31 in New Orleans. Topics in the sessions ranged from waves in plasma to the physics of ITER, the international physics experiment in Cadarache, France; to women in plasma physics. Dozens of PPPL scientists presented the results of their cutting-edge research into magnetic fusion and plasma science. There were about 100 invited speakers at the conference, more than a dozen of whom were from PPPL.  

How magnetic reconnection goes “Boom!”  MRX research reveals how magnetic energy turns into explosive particle energy.

Paper by: M. Yamada, J. Yoo

Magnetic reconnection, in which the magnetic field lines in plasma snap apart and violently reconnect, creates massive eruptions of plasma from the sun. But how reconnection transforms magnetic energy into explosive particle energy has been a major mystery.

Now research conducted on the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX)  at PPPL has taken a key step toward identifying how the transformation takes place, and measuring experimentally the amount of magnetic energy that turns into particle energy. The investigation showed that reconnection in a prototypical reconnection layer converts about 50 percent of the magnetic energy, with one-third of the conversion heating the electrons and two-thirds accelerating the ion in the plasma. “This is a major milestone for our research,” said Masaaki Yamada, the principal investigator for the MRX. “We can now see the entire picture of how much of the energy goes to the electrons and how much to  the ions in a prototypical reconnection layer.”

What a Difference a Magnetic Field Makes. Experiments on MRX confirm the lack of symmetry in converging space plasmas.

Paper by: J. Yoo

Spacecraft observing magnetic reconnection have noted a fundamental gap between most theoretical studies of the phenomenon and what happens in space. While the studies assume that the converging plasmas share symmetrical characteristics such as temperature, density and magnetic strength, observations have shown that this is hardly the case

PPPL researchers have now found the disparity in plasma density in experiments conducted on the MRX. The work, done in collaboration with the Space Science Center at the University of New Hampshire, marks the first laboratory confirmation of the disparity and deepens understanding of the mechanisms involved.

Data from the MRX findings could help to inform a four-satellite mission—the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, or MMS—that NASA plans to launch next year to study reconnection in the magnetosphere. The probes could produce a better understanding of geomagnetic storms and lead to advanced warning of the disturbances and an improved ability to cope with them.

Using radio waves to control density in fusion plasma. Experiments show how heating electrons in the center of hot fusion plasma can increase turbulence, reducing the density in the inner core.

Paper by: D. Ernst, K. Burrell, W. Guttenfelder, T. Rhodes, A. Dimits

Recent fusion experiments on the DIII-D tokamak at General Atomics in San Diego and the Alcator C-Mod tokamak at MIT show that beaming microwaves into the center of the plasma can be used to control the density in the center of the plasma. The experiments and analysis were conducted by a team of researchers as part of a National Fusion Science Campaign.

The new experiments reveal that turbulent density fluctuations in the inner core intensify when most of the heat goes to electrons instead of plasma ions, as would happen in the center of a self-sustaining fusion reaction. Supercomputer simulations closely reproduce the experiments, showing that the electrons become more turbulent as they are more strongly heated, and this transports both particles and heat out of the plasma.  “As we approached conditions where mainly the electrons are heated, pure trapped electrons begin to dominate,” said Walter Guttenfelder, who did the supercomputer simulations for the DIII-D experiments along with Andris Dimits of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Guttenfelder was a co-leader of the experiments and simulations with Keith Burrell of General Atomics and Terry Rhoades of UCLA. Darin Ernst of MIT led the overall research. 

Calming the Plasma Edge: The Tail that Wags the Dog. Lithium injections show promise for optimizing the performance of fusion plasmas.

Paper by: G.L. Jackson, R. Maingi, T. Osborne, Z. Yan, D. Mansfield, S.L. Allen

Experiments on the DIII-D tokamak fusion reactor that General Atomics operates for the U.S. Department of Energy have demonstrated the ability of lithium injections to transiently double the temperature and pressure at the edge of the plasma and delay the onset of instabilities and other transients. Researchers conducted the experiments using a lithium-injection device developed at PPPL.

Lithium can play an important role in controlling the edge region and hence the evolution of the entire plasma. In the present work, lithium diminished the frequency of instabilities known as “edge localized modes” (ELMs), which have associated heat pulses that can damage the section of the vessel wall used to exhaust heat in fusion devices.

The tailored injections produced ELM-free periods of up to 0.35 seconds, while reference discharges without lithium showed no ELM-free periods above 0.03 sec. The lithium rapidly increased the width of the pedestal region—the edge of the plasma where temperature drops off sharply—by up to 100 percent and raised the electron pressure and total pressure in the edge by up to 100 percent and 60 percent respectively. These dramatic effects produced a 60 percent increase in total energy-confinement time.

Scratching the surface of a material mystery. Scientists shed new light on how lithium conditions the volatile edge of fusion plasmas.

Paper by: Angela Capece

For fusion energy to fuel future power plants, scientists must find ways to control the interactions that take place between the volatile edge of fusion plasma and the physical walls that surround it in fusion facilities. Such interactions can profoundly affect conditions at the superhot core of the plasma in ways that include kicking up impurities that cool down the core and halt fusion reactions. Among the puzzles is how temperature affects the ability of lithium to absorb and retain the deuterium particles that stray from the fuel that creates fusion reactions.

Answers are now emerging from a new surface-science laboratory at PPPL that can probe lithium coatings that are just three atoms thick. The experiments showed that the ability of ultrathin lithium films to retain deuterium drops as the temperature of the molybdenum substrate rises—a result that provides insight  into how lithium affects the performance of tokamaks. Experiments further showed that exposing the lithium to oxygen improved deuterium retention at temperatures below about 400 degrees Kelvin. But without exposure to oxygen, lithium films could retain deuterium at higher temperatures as a result of lithium-deuterium bonding during a PPPL experiment. 

Putting Plasma to Work Upgrading the U.S. Power Grid. PPPL lends GE a hand in developing an advanced power-conversion switch.

Paper by: Johan Carlsson, Alex Khrabrov, Igor Kaganovich, Timothy Summerer

When researchers at General Electric sought help in designing a plasma-based power switch, they turned to PPPL. The proposed switch, which GE is developing under contract with the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, could contribute to a more advanced and reliable electric grid and help lower utility bills. The switch would consist of a plasma-filled tube that turns current on and off in systems that convert the direct current coming from long-distance power lines to the alternating current that lights homes and businesses; such systems are used to reverse the process as well.

To assist GE, PPPL used a pair of computer codes to model the properties of plasma under different magnetic configurations and gas pressures. GE also studied PPPL’s use of liquid lithium, which the laboratory employs to prevent damage to the divertor that exhausts heat in a fusion facility. The information could help GE develop a method for protecting the liquid-metal cathode—the negative terminal inside the tube—from damage from the ions carrying the current flowing through the plasma. 

Laser experiments mimic cosmic explosions. Scientists bring plasma tsunamis into the lab.

Researchers are finding ways to understand some of the mysteries of space without leaving earth. Using high-intensity lasers at the University of Rochester’s OMEGA EP Facility focused on targets smaller than a pencil’s eraser, they conducted experiments to create colliding jets of plasma knotted by plasma filaments and self-generated magnetic fields.

In two related experiments, researchers used powerful lasers to recreate a tiny laboratory version of what happens at the beginning of solar flares and stellar explosions, creating something like a gigantic plasma tsunami in space. Much of what happens in those situations is related to magnetic reconnection, which can accelerate particles to high energy and is the force driving solar flares towards earth.

Laboratory experiment aims to identify how tsunamis of plasma called “shock waves” form in space. 

By W. Fox, G. Fisksel (LLE), A. Bhattacharjee

William Fox, a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and his colleague Gennady Fiksel, of the University of Rochester, got an unexpected result when they used lasers in the Laboratory to recreate a tiny version of a gigantic plasma tsunami called a “shock wave.” The shock wave is a thin area found at the boundary between a supernova and the colder material around it that has a turbulent magnetic field that sweeps up plasma into a steep tsunami-like wave of plasma.

Fox and Fiksel used two very powerful lasers to zap two tiny pieces of plastic in a vacuum chamber to 10 million degrees and create two colliding plumes of extremely hot plasma.  The researchers found something they had not anticipated that had not previously been seen in the laboratory: When the two plasmas merged they broke into clumps of long thin filaments due to a process called the “Weibel instability.” This instability could be causing the turbulent magnetic fields that form the shock waves in space. Their research could shed light on the origin of primordial magnetic fields that formed when galaxies were created and could help researchers understand how cosmic rays are accelerated to high energies.

Magnetic reconnection in the laboratory.

By: G. Fiksel (LLE), W. Fox, A. Bhattacharjee

Many plasmas in space already contain a strong magnetic field, so colliding plasmas there behave somewhat differently. Gennady Fiksel, of the University of Rochester, and William Fox continued their previous research by adding a magnetic field by pulsing current through very small wires. They then created the two colliding plumes of plasma as they did in an earlier experiment. When the two plasmas collided it compressed and stretched the magnetic field and a tremendous amount of energy accumulated in the field like a stretched rubber band. As the magnetic field lines pushed close together, the long lines broke apart and reformed like a single stretched rubber band, forming a slingshot that propels the plasma and releases the energy into the plasma, accelerating the plasma and heating it.

The experiment showed that the reconnection process happens faster than theorists had previously predicted. This could help shed light on solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which also happen extremely quickly. Coronal mass ejections can trigger geomagnetic storms that can interfere with satellites and wreak havoc with cellphone service.

The laser technique the scientists are using is new in the area of high energy density plasma and allows scientists to control the magnetic field to manipulate it in various ways. 

Source: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

Workers at the Cadarache nuclear research facility in the south of France have started building walls around the large excavated area where a seven-storey building housing the ambitious project and related facilities will stand – another major milestone after the completion of the Tokamak Complex basement in August. "The start of pouring activities for the massive Tokamak Complex is an important and exciting moment for the ITER Project," said ITER director-general Osamu Motojima. "Years of hard work by all ITER members are bearing fruit as the ITER facility takes shape in France and as the manufacturing of the systems and components advances. ITER is progressing on all fronts."

The first phase of construction, involving the creation of the ground support structure for the Tokamak Complex, took four years to finish. Between August 2010 and 2014, workers dug the 17m-deep Tokamak Complex Seismic Pit, created a ground-level basement and retaining walls, installed 493 seismic columns and pads and created the B2 foundation slab that will support some 400,000 tonnes of building equipment including the 23,000-ton tokamak.

"Europe is taking ITER construction to the next level,” said Henrik Bindslev, director of Fusion for Energy – the agency overseeing the project. “The basemat is where scientific work and industrial know-how will come together and be deployed to seize the power of fusion energy." The seven-storey Tokamak Complex will house not only the ITER Tokamak itslef, but also more than 30 different plant systems including cooling systems and electrical power supplies. Eighty metres tall, 120m long and 80m wide, the construction of the Tokamak Complex will require 16,000 tonnes of rebar, 150,000 cubic metres of concrete and 7,500 tonnes of steel.

French-Spanish consortium VFR is responsible for the construction as part of a €300m contract, signed in December 2012. As part of the deal, VFR will also build the ITER Assembly Building and facilities to house heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, as well as cryoplant compressor and a coldbox.

Three-hundred workers are currently employed on the construction site but the number is expected to increase to 2,000 in the upcoming years.

ITER is scheduled for completion in 2019 with first attempts to produce plasma in a nuclear fusion reaction to take place in 2020. However, regular operations are not expected to commence before 2027, 11 years behind the original schedule.

The programme was initiated in 1985 and formally approved in 2006 with an estimated budget of €10bn.

Source: Engineering and Technology Magazine

General Atomics’ DIII-D Tokamak has been a critical part of the nation’s magnetic fusion energy research since it was built in the 1980s.

Over the years, wear and tear has taken its toll. However, it was impossible for researchers to see inside the San Diego company’s highly complicated machine to assess damage - until now.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers, in collaboration with General Atomics and the University of Arizona, have developed an infrared and visible camera viewing system that’s able to produce wide-angle, tangential views of full poloidal (north-south direction of the magnetic field) cross-sections inside the tokamak.

The camera’s images provide researchers with data about the interior conditions of the DIII-D, which was built under contract for the Department of Energy. DOE provides funding for its operation.

“We wanted to look inside the tokamak’s chamber to see where things were heating up on the walls,” said Kevin Morris, a designer with LLNL’s National Security Engineer Division, who was part of the research team that developed the camera system. “There are a lot of critical areas that are heated by the plasma, and researchers want to understand them better.”

Tokamaks are devices that use a magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus, which looks like doughnut. The plasma is produced by heating a mixture of deuterium and tritium – two isotopes of hydrogen – to temperatures greater than 150 million degrees Celsius.

In order to keep the hot electrically charged plasma particles away from the machine’s walls, strong magnetic field lines cause them to move around the torus in a helical shape.

A rendering of the inside of the DIII-D Tokamak. Image credit: LLNL“The plasma can be unstable,” Morris said. “This can result in heating of the wall in new places.”

The camera system consists of a commercially available infrared camera, a fast visible camera and an optical system designed by a collaboration of physicists, engineers, optical designers and mechanical designers.

Their design will be used as a prototype for a set of larger cameras that will be built for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project. The international nuclear fusion megaproject seeks to build the world’s largest experimental tokamak in France.

DIII-D’s camera system, which looks like a periscope, has three polished stainless steel mirrors in a vacuum that view the tokamak through an aperture in the first mirror. It views the machine’s lower divertor, upper divertor, inner wall and outer wall in infrared and visible light.

Experiments with the infrared camera have produced results including surface temperatures measurements, surface heat flux profiles and heat distribution along the wall, both in latitude and longitude.

The research team’s findings were published in the American Institute of Physics Review of Scientific Instruments.

Team members include LLNL's Lynn Seppala, Dean Urone, Kevin Morris, Shannon Ayers and Bill Meyer; General Atomics: Charles Lasnier, Steve Allen and Ron Ellis.

Source: Product Design&Development