FUSION IN EUROPE NEWS & VIEWS ON THE PROGRESS OF FUSION RESEARCH WHY FUSION? SUMMER 2019 FUSION IN EUROPE SUMMER 2019 Contents LOOKING INTO THE WHY FUSION? 6 CRYSTAL BALL 8 We asked and the fusion community answered! Marie-Line Mayoral explains how modelling is taking fusion Picture: Sarah McKellar on Unsplash experiments to the next level. Picture: Holger Link on Unsplash PSI-2 LINEAR PLASMA OUTSIDE INSIGHTS: DEVICE POSTER ALTERNATIVE FUSION 12 14 See where materials are put through the ultimate Science writer Daniel Clery looks at the race to realise plasma test. Picture: Christophe Roux, CEA, France fusion. Picture: General Fusion Imprint © Petra Nieckchen, Head of Communications Dept. FUSION IN EUROPE This magazine or parts of it may not be reproduced ISSN 1818-5355 without permission. Text, pictures and layout, except where noted, courtesy of the EUROfusion members. EUROfusion The EUROfusion members are the Research Units Programme Management Unit – Garching of the European Fusion Programme. Responsibility Boltzmannstr. 2 for the information and views expressed in this 85748 Garching / Munich, Germany newsletter lies entirely with the authors. Neither phone: +49-89-3299-4128 the Research Units or anyone acting on their behalf For more information see the email: [email protected] is responsible for any damage resulting from the website: www.euro-fusion.org editor: Karl Tischler use of information contained in this publication. 2 FUSION IN EUROPE | Summer 2019 | EUROfusion | LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Dear Reader, As we bake under record-breaking heat waves again this year, it is harder to ignore that climate change means that we have to make changes. Really big changes. However there is no clear winner amongst the alternatives to fossil fuels. Wind, solar, nuclear fission, geothermal… each one has disadvantages and limitations. For this issue, I sought to understand why fusion matters. Why should we continue to invest our physicist’s time and our taxes into researching and realising a source of power that will, if all goes well, start feeding into the electrical grid sometime after 2060? Then on July 14 my dear wife gave birth to our daughter ATTENTION new readers! Anna Norma. That’s her picture there. She’s my answer to the question “why fusion?” Sure, we do not know exactly You’ll find many acronyms and terms in this when we’ll solve the fusion puzzle. But for her sake, and magazine that are most likely foreign to you. Fear for the sake of all our children, we have to. not! We've highlighted them and provided easy- to-understand descriptions on our website: What’s your answer? www.euro-fusion.org/glossary Maybe by sharing our reasons why, other people will take notice. This might inspire others to learn about fusion. That could increase the support for fusion. Which will help us realise it all the sooner. Keep up with all things EUROfusion-related That would certainly be a good thing. online: @FusionInCloseUp Karl Tischler @fusion2050 Editor of Fusion in Europe linkedin.com/company/eurofusion/ [email protected] Have a question, comment or suggestion? We’d love to hear from you! Email us at: [email protected] 4 No Video too Blurry This fusion spin-off start-up is finding new uses for its plasma-tracking software. SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE HERE: 20 Impressions https://tinyurl.com/ Fusion software developer Tamás Szabolics yc7lz3xm shares his passion for digital photography. 22 ITER Generation This project has received funding from the Euratom Meet the young people dedicated to turning research and training programme 2014-2018 and fusion’s promise into reality. 2019-2020 under grant agreement No 633053. 2 3 Newsletter Eurofusion 2016-01_final_aktu120416.indd 4 01.06.16 11:28 FUSION AHEAD! FUSION IN EUROPE FUSION AHEAD! While the realisation of fusion energy may be decades away, the technologies spinning off from fusion research are already benefiting Europeans today. Exploring yet another remarkable case is EUROfusion’s own Misha Kidambi. NO VIDEO 0 1 1 0 TOO BLURRY 1 FUSION AHEAD! WRITTEN BY MISHA KIDAMBI If you have ever seen what fusion plasma videos look like, it is easy to appreciate the challenge To a casual observer a blurry, noisy, low qua- of collecting data from them. Although shot by lity video is meaningless. But in industry and super-efficient, top-of-the-range, fast- framing research such a poor quality video is frequently cameras, the videos of burning plasmas are the only source of invaluable data and infor- moving images of pink haze or a black-and- mation. The question is how to extract it. This white film… mostly black with flashing lights. is where APREX Solutions’ special TRACK “The videos of what happens inside atokamak software comes into the picture. It tracks and during experiments have high noise levels and analyses videos. poor contrast. What you see are films of events that occur extremely quickly, in a matter of TRACKING EVERY BLURRY FRAME microseconds. The strength of the TRACK Set up in 2017 by former fusion researchers software is that researchers can extract the Romain Baude and Mikaël Désécures, French data they need from such videos,” explains start-up APREX (Analyses de PRofils EXperi- Romain. “The user can customize the algo- mentaux) Solutions began with an idea to rithm without needing any specialised skills expand the use of a video tracking and ana lysing in coding for image analysis. This allows algorithm initially developed for studying researchers to focus on collecting and analy- FUSION AHEAD! fusion plasma videos. sing the data rather than spending weeks or even months adapting their own codes.” GETTING UNDER THE SKIN OF SKYRMIONS Researchers at the University of California in San Diego developing next generation in- formation-storage systems work with quasi­ particles known as skyrmions – a nano- sized disturbance similar to a subatomic hur- ricane. TRACK became an important part of their research story. “Think of skyrmions as perfectly-wrapped magne tization textures,” says researcher Jeffrey Brock. “Because of their well-defined wrapping, they are Tracking skyrmions, Picture: incredibly stable and can be moved Aprex Solutions and the University very efficiently using electric currents. of San Diego They have attracted a lot of attention recently because they could be used as 4 FUSION AHEAD! FUSION IN EUROPE | Summer 2019 | EUROfusion | FUSION AHEAD! FUSION AHEAD! information carriers in the next-generation of APREX’ software to identify, track and char- storage devices,” he explains. acterize turbulent structures despite their very complex dynamics and short lifetimes of So why use TRACK? “From a research point- a mere 20 microseconds on average. of-view, we need to get data about skyrmions’ speed, acceleration, displacement and other THE PICTURE OF SUCCESS parameters. Getting all this information for Having honed their skills and software on so many skyrmionsFUSION fromAHEAD! low-contrast im- videos of one of the most turbulent places in ages using existing software was simply not the universe, APREX sees many opportunities pos sible. Our only option was to collect this ahead. “We will continue pushing the enve- data manu ally,” says Jeffrey. “TRACK provid- lope of what is possible to continue working ed a way to customise and automate our data with the fusion research community as well as collection process. What would have taken finding new uses and clients in other fields and weeks we can now do in one afternoon.” industries,” tells Romain. QUALITY CONTROL What started as a solution for fusion research Automation using the APREX software also has found multiple new applications – it’s saved time and improved quality control for another fusion spin-off success story! n an optical fibre manufacturer. “The original way to detect defects at a micrometre scale was entirely manual,” Romain points out. Unsur- prisingly, this quality checking process was er- ror-prone and its results were not reproducible. The APREX software was used to study imag- es and videos of the optical fibre production line. It was able to correctly identify both the number, and size of the defects consistently. “Using TRACK we developed a completely Mikaël Désécures and Romain Baude, Picture: Jean Lamour Institute customised and integrated system that met their specific needs,” says Romain. FUSION AHEAD! Aprex Solutions Going back to their roots, another APREX https://www.aprex-solutions.com/ client is more familiar to the fusion commu- [email protected] nity: the COMPASS toka mak at the Institute youtube.com/channel/ of Plasma Physics of the Academy of Sciences UC6U2TeM72pkpUC5veTX6mmw/featured in the Czech Republic. A team of fusion linkedin.com/company/aprex-solutions/ researchers working on this device recently published results in the journal Nuclear Fusion that were obtained using TRACK. In fusion experiments, researchers have to deal with a phenomenon known as plasma turbulence. FUSION SPIN-OFFS It’s comparable to what happens when water boils in a kettle with one important difference: Learn more about fusion spin-offs and check strong turbulence in a fusion device can sud- out the new fusion spin-offs video here: denly extinguish a fusion reaction. For reliable energy production, understanding the turbu- www.euro-fusion.org/spin-offs lence is crucial. Researchers successfully used 4 5 FUSION IN EUROPE Fusion’s complexity has repeatedly sur- ? prised the world’s top physicists, dashing bold plans against the hard realities of un- cooperative plasmas. Even today, fusion power is 30 to 50 years away, meaning that it will not be ready in time to help us avert climate catastrophe. If this is the ? case, why bother developing fusion? To ? ? find the answer, Fusion in Europe stalked the hallways, took to the phones and fired ? off emails. We received a symphony of ? ? answers.