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Announcements

BPO Web Seminar

The USBPO is pleased to announce the next in its series of web seminars on subjects of interest to the fusion community.

Time:  Monday, December 9, 1:00 pm EST, 12:00 CST, 10:00 PST
Topic:  Recent activities of the ITPA Transport and Confinement Topical Group 
A review of current issues and highlights in this topical area, following the ITPA meeting held October 7-9 in Kyushu, Japan. Group discussion is welcome and encouraged.

Presenters:	George McKee, University of Wisconsin
	Gary Staebler, General Atomics
	Leaders of the USBPO Confinement and Transport Topical Group

Remote Connection information is available through the BPO Forum: Web Seminar Announcement

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Director's Corner

by C.M. Greenfield

ITER Council meets
The ITER Council met for the thirteenth time last week at ITER headquarters in France. Among the highlights of this meeting were two technical decisions that I discussed in last months column - they voted to update the ITER baseline design to include starting research operations with a full tungsten divertor (instead of starting with carbon and changing later) and to include the in-vessel ELM-control coils.

A number of non-technical issues were discussed, too, including reports that all major contracts for on-site civil works have been signed. This is an important milestone, as it signifies completion of a phase of the project that has produced much of the highly publicized schedule uncertainty.

The Council also received a report from an independent assessment of project management and governance. An action plan is being put into place to respond to the findings of this assessment, with evaluation to be made at a special ITER Council meeting in February.

APS-DPP conference
Two sessions were organized by the US Burning Plasma Organization during last weeks APS-DPP conference in Denver. Both the contributed oral session on Research in Support of ITER, and the Town Meeting on ITER were attended by between 150 and 200 people, with a set of talks spanning current research, the technical changes to the ITER baseline design (see above), and a report on the status of the US ITER Project. I expect that within the next week or two we will be able to post all of the talks from both sessions on the US Burning Plasma Organization website (we are waiting for permission from a few of the speakers).

Webinars
The USBPO webinar titled, "Recent activities of the ITPA Transport and Confinement Topical Group," has been rescheduled for Monday, December 9th at 1pm EST. The presenters will be George McKee (University of Wisconsin) and Gary Staebler (General Atomics), who are the leaders of the USBPO Transport and Confinement Topical Group. USBPO members should have received a message from Amanda Hubbard on how to participate (a link to instructions also appears in this issue of eNews, see Announcements). We are also working on scheduling additional web seminars to report on the recent spate of ITPA topical group meetings, as well as additional topics of interest to the fusion community. Suggestions for topics and speakers are always welcome.

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ITPA Update

Coordinating Committee
	4th Meeting, ITER Site, France, December 9 - 11, 2013
Diagnostics Topical Group
	25th Meeting, ITER Site, France, October 16 - 18, 2013 A preview of the meeting summary written by J.L. Terry is given below, and the entire summary is available at the BPO Forum (D). This was the first Diagnostics TG meeting to be held at the ITER site, representing a decision by the Group to hold its fall meeting there for the foreseeable future. The site of the spring meeting will continue to cycle through the different ITER-partner regions. This decision was made in order to foster closer communication and contact between the ITER Organization (IO) and the Diagnostics TG. The first day of the meeting was devoted to presentations by the IO and collaborators about the status of ITER diagnostics.
Energetic Particle Physics Topical Group
	11th ITPA Meeting, Beijing, China September 22 - 23, 2013 A summary of the meeting written by N. Gorelenkov is available at the BPO Forum (EP).
Integrated Operation Scenarios Topical Group
	11th Meeting, Fukuoka, Japan, October 7 - 9, 2013 The agenda and a summary of the meeting are available at the BPO Forum (IOS).
MHD, Disruptions & Control Topical Group
	23rd Meeting, Toki, Japan, March 10 - 14, 2014
Pedestal & Edge Physics Topical Group
	25th Meeting, Kyushu University, Japan, October 7 - 9, 2013
Scrape-Off-Layer & Divertor Topical Group
	19th Meeting, Kanazawa, Japan, January 20 - 23, 2014
Transport & Confinement Topical Group
	11th Meeting, Fukuoka, Japan, October 7 - 9, 2013

 

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Schedule of Burning Plasma Events

Click here to visit a list of previously concluded events.

2013
November 11 - 15, APS DPP Meeting, Denver, United States
November 18 - 20, 18thWorkshop on MHD Stability Control, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
December 9 - 11, ITPA: 4th CC/CTP Meeting, ITER
December 11, 4th CTP Ex Com Meeting, ITER
December 16 - 20, IAEA: 2nd DEMO Programme Workshop, Vienna, Austria
2014 - NSTX-U First Plasma -
January 20 - 23, ITPA: 19th Scrape-of-Layer and Divertor Topical Group Meeting, Kanazawa, Japan
March 10 - 14, ITPA: 23rd MHD Disruptions, and Control Topical Group Meeting, Toki, Japan Held jointly with the US-Japan MHD Workshop on "3-D field effect on MHD control: the rols of magnetic island and stochasticity in optimum MHD control"
April 22 - 25 Transport Task Force (TTF) Meeting, San Antonio, TX United States
April 22 - 25, 18th Joint Workshop on Electrong Cyclotron Emission and Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating (EC-18), Nara, Japan
June 1 - 5, 20th Topical Conference on High-Temperature Plasma Diagnostics (HTPD), Atlanta, GA, United States
2015 W7-X First Plasma	2020 ITER First Plasma
2019 JT60-SA First Plasma	2027 ITER Full DT Operations

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Contact and Contribution Information

This newsletter provides a monthly update on U.S. Burning Plasma Organization activities. The USBPO operates under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy, Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) division. All comments, including suggestions for content, may be sent to the Editor. Correspondence may also be submitted through the USBPO Website Feedback Form.

Become a member of the U.S. Burning Plasma Organization by signing up for a topical group.

Editor: David Pace (pacedc@fusion.gat.com)
Assistant Editor: Amadeo Gonzales (agonzales@austin.utexas.edu)

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