Spanish company will assemble the ITER vacuum vessel

ENSA plant located in Maliaño (Cantabria). Photo: ENSA

The international ITER project, whose objective is to demonstrate the viability of nuclear fusion as a source of energy, has chosen to use Spanish technology for the assembly of its vacuum vessel. The different vacuum vessel components will be assembled at the ITER site in Caradache (France) by the Spanish company Equipos Nucleares (ENSA).

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Google enters in the fusion research

Machine-learning researchers at Google Research have developed in collaboration with researchers at Tri Alpha Energy a new computer algorithm which has significantly speeded up the optimization of its C-2U plasma generator.

On 25 July, the researchers published a report in the journal Scientific Reports describing the “Optometrist Algorithm” , a machine-learning tool that aids in choosing parameters to hold hotter nuclear plasma for longer periods in fusion experiments, one of the keys to cracking the complex code of nuclear fusion.

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China achieves the world’s longest high confinement fusion discharge

The EAST machine. Source: Institute of Plasma Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences

The Institute of Plasma Physics at Chinese Academy of Sciences have set a new world record in fusion by achieving 101.2 seconds in the so-called H-mode confinement regime in a fusion reactor on the 3rd of July.

The experiment was conducted on Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor at the Institute of Physical Science in Hefei, China.

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