USBPO Mission Statement: Advance the scientific understanding of burning plasmas and ensure the greatest benefit from a burning plasma experiment by coordinating relevant U.S. fusion research with broad community participation.
CONTENTS
Announcements Director’s Corner Schedule of Burning Plasma Events Contact and Contribution Information
Announcements
Community Input Meetings for the FESAC Transformative Enabli ng Capabilities SubcommitteeBackground:
The Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) was recently
charged â€to identify the most promising transformative enabling capabilities
for the U.S. to pursue that could promote efficient advance toward fusion
energy, building on burning plasma science and technology.†The charge
lists sample focus areas including â€liquid metals, additive manufacturing,
high critical-temperature superconductors, exascale computing, materials
by design, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and novel measurements.â€
Note that these are only examples. The committee will accept community
input on any â€promising transformative enabling capabilities†that
promote efficient advance toward fusion energy associated with the subject
mater being investigate by the Transformative Enabling Capabilities (TEC)
subcommittees listed below as designated by their titles. The full charge
can be found at: https://science.energy.gov/~/media/fes/fesac/pdf/2017/Charge_Letter_FESAC_Feb_2017.pdf.
Opportunities for Community Input:
The subcommittee welcomes the submission of white papers and talk requests that describe concepts and technologies that can bring fusion power closer to reality. For full impact, all talk requests should be accompanied by white papers. While we recommend that all white papers be accompanied by talk requests, white papers will be considered in the absence of a companion talk. Every effort will be made to honor all talk requests responsive to the charge, subject to practical time constraints.
Dates and locations:Three meetings are being planned where the community can present input to the TEC subcommittee:
May 30-June 1, 2017 (Washington DC area): Community input meeting for Plasma Diagnostics, Actuators,
and Control sub-panel, and also for Reactor and Balance of Plant sub-panel; workshop starts at 9 AM on
5/30 and ends by 6 PM on 6/1.
June 20-22, 2017 (Chicago or Washington DC area): Community input meeting for Plasma-Materials
Interaction sub-panel; workshop starts at 1 PM on 6/20 and ends by 6 PM on 6/22.
July 19-21, 2017 (PPPL, Princeton NJ): Final workshop for all three sub-panels; additional community
input time, if necessary; workshop starts at 1 PM on 7/19 and ends by 6 PM on 7/21.
For more information please visit /activities/?article=FESAC\%20TEC\%20Panel\%20Public\%20Info\%20Home\%20Page:
Includes important information regarding deadlines and logistics for submitting
white papers and requests for presentation time.
Dates: July 24-28, 2017
Location: University of Wisconsin - Madison
This an announcement for the first of two magnetic fusion community workshops to enable community presentation and discussion focused on the recent charge to the National Academies of Sciences (NAS), Engineering, and Medicine: tt>http://sites.nationalacademies.org/BPA/BPA_177107.
The NAS Committee has been charged to prepare an interim report and a final report focused on the importance of burning plasmas in the future of U.S. fusion energy development, along with consideration of the scientific and engineering challenges and opportunities on the path toward fusion energy, and possible scenarios to achieve that goal.
We are planning two community workshops to enable community presentation and discussion focused on the NAS charges:
Workshop 1: July 24-28, 2017 in Madison, WI - view the Announcement PDF for more details.
Workshop 2: (Tentative) December 11-15, 2017 in Austin, TX
For additional and future workshop information, please visit the workshop website:
https://sites.google.com/site/usmfrstrategicdirections/home
If you have any questions, please contact the meeting co-chairs:
maurer@physics.auburn.edu, jmenard@pppl.gov, wade@fusion.gat.com
Director’s Corner
C.M. Greenfield
National Academies and FESAC studies are underwayA new FESAC panel has also recently been formed, led by Rajesh Maingi (PPPL) and Arnold Lumsdaine (ORNL), in response to a charge to identify transformational technological developments that could enable future progress. Besides directly advising DOE Fusion Energy Sciences on technology research directions this study will also inform the second phase of the NAS study. Three community input meetings have been organized (see announcements) to allow you to be heard.
ITER News
As progress continues to accelerate at ITER, it is difficult for me to report all of the developments. Luckily, a lot of information is available in the weekly ITER Newsline, available at https://www.iter.org/newsline. You can read it online or subscribe to receive it via email at that web site.
Next month I will be able to give you a first-person report on progress at the ITER site, as I am preparing once again for an ITER Science and Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) meeting in mid-May. The other US participants are Rob Goldston (PPPL), Earl Marmar (MIT), Juergen Rapp (ORNL), and Jim Van Dam (DOE). At the upcoming meeting we will be considering the following charges (condensed version):
- Review an assessment of the most significant scientific and technological issues that ITER is facing up to First Plasma
- Review the updated ITER Research Plan including availability of diagnostic and heating and current drive systems
- Hear a presentation on the status of the in-vessel coils and the ex-vessel correction coils
Of particular interest to many of us is the ITER Research Plan. The current "official" version was written in 2009. As you've read here over the past two years, ITER's schedule has been reviewed and revised, with a new version having been adopted that is consistent with each of the ITER partners' expectations for availability of their systems. In recent months, the ITER Research Plan (IRP) has been undergoing review and revision by an international group (US participants in 2017 are Max Fenstermacher of LLNL, Stan Kaye of PPPL, Tim Luce of General Atomics, and Steve Sabbagh of Columbia), with the goal of making it consistent with the schedule. I know many of you are anxious to see the new plan; my understanding is that it should become public after the ITER Council approves it as a new "official" IRP.
Schedule of Burning Plasma Events
USBPO Public Calendar: View Online or Subscribe
May 1-3, Sherwood Fusion Theory meeting, Annapolis, MD, USA May 1-3, ITPA TC Topical group meeting, Princeton, USA May 8-12, ITPA DIAG topical group, Chengdu, China May 21-25, 44th International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS), Atlantic City, New Jersey May 30 - June 2, ITPA Divertor Scrape-Off (DSOL) Meeting, York, UK May 30-June 1, 2017 FESAC TEC Community input meeting (Plasma Diagnostics, Actuators, and Control sub-panel, and also for Reactor and Balance of Plant), Washington DC June 4-8, 27th IEEE Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE2017), Shanghai, China June 20-22, 2017 FESAC TEC Community input meeting (Plasma-materials interactions), Washington DC June 26-30, 44th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics, Belfast, Northern Ireland July 17-19, 2017 Theory and Simulation of Disruptions Workshop, Princeton NJ July 19-21, 2017 FESAC TEC Community input meeting, Princeton NJ July 24-28, Community Workshop on U.S. Magnetic Fusion Research Strategic Directions, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin September 5-8, 2nd Asia-Pacific Symposium on Tritium Science (APSOT-2), Livermore Valley, California, USA September 11-13, ITPA EP topical group meeting, Princeton, USA September 18-20, ITPA PEP topical group meeting, Helsinki, Finland September 18-20, ITPA TC topical group meeting, Helsinki, Finland September 18-22, 1st Asia-Paficic Conference on PLasma Physics (AAPPS-DPP), Chengdu, China September 24-28, Laser Aided Plasma Diagnostics Conference (LAPD18), Prague, Czech Republic September 27-29, Plasma Edge Theory in Fusion Devices (PET16), Marseille, France October 9-12, ITPA IOS Topical group meeting, Lisbon, Portugal October 23-27, 59 th Annual Meeting of the APS Division on Plasma Physics, Milwaukee, Wisconsin November 7-9, ITPA Coordinating Committee, ITER Headquarters, Cadarache, France
June 24-28, 2018 IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS), Denver, Colorado, USA
- JET DT-campaign - JT60-SA First Plasma -