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CAMBRIDGE — Senator Elizabeth Warren placed her hand atop a large red button and pressed firmly, restarting a nuclear experiment that MIT believes could help save the planet — but which the Obama administration considered superfluous and tried to kill year after year.

More than 100 scientists, engineers, and technicians — most of whom had, until recently, been under layoff notices — had gathered on campus that cold February day, their eyes glued to the three projection screens hanging from the front of the control room.

Then as superhot plasma inside the fusion reactor next door reached its metal walls, a flash of light appeared on one of the screens. The grand energy experiment had throbbed back to life.

Read more on the website.

​On the way to designing and constructing the ������app Port Plug Test Facility, the ongoing gasket test campaign at the Russian company Cryogenmash marks an important milestone.

Click to view the video produced by ������app Russia.

​������app is the most complex experiment ever attempted on this planet. Its aim, to demonstrate that nuclear fusion, the power of the Sun, can give us pollution free energy that we can use for millions of years. But at the moment, it's still largely a vast building site in the Haut Provence of southern France ...

Roland Pease has been to Cadarache to see how work is progressing, and to hear of the hopes of the scientists who have dedicated their working lives to the dream.

Listen to the 30-minute documentary from the BBC World Service program Discovery .

At Cadarache (south of France), the Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (CEA/DSM/IRFM) is modifying the Tore Supra plasma facility to become a test platform open to all ������app partners : the WEST project (acronym derived from W Environment in Steady-state Tokamak, where W is the chemical symbol for tungsten).

The goal is to equip the tokamak with an actively cooled tungsten divertor, benefitting from its unique long pulse capabilities, its high level of additional power and the unique experience of operation with actively cooled components.

Read the latest news from the WEST project in the attached document.

​On 21 May, directly after the regular class schedule, students, graduates and young scientists of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology had the chance to meet representatives of the Russian Domestic Agency. The exchange was organized as part of ������app Day to inform Russia's future physicists about the international collaboration for fusion, progress in its implementation, and the ongoing activities in Russia carried out within its framework.

The head of the Russian Domestic Agency, Anatoly Krasilnikov, stressed that attraction of young scientists for fusion is based not only on the potential of the ������app Project, but also the national development program for the construction of a domestic fusion facility. "This is the decades-long project and we need highly qualified personnel to work for it!" ������app Russia is intensifying its activities to inform and attract the best minds.

During ������app Day, students heard about development work on a number of diagnostic systems for ������app (reflectometry, neutron diagnostics, optical systems) underway in Russian institutes where, the speakers stressed, employments opportunities exist.

​A six-kilometre-long channel, the Canal de Caronte, leads from the Mediterranean Gulf of Fos into the inland sea Étang de Berre. At its narrowest along the south shore of the island that encloses the old town of Martigues, its width does not exceed 25 metres.

On Monday 31 March, the barge carrying the 800-ton ������app test convoy deftly negotiated the canal and passed under the Martigues drawbridge, a spectacular sight that marks the entrance into the Étang de Berre.

​The European Domestic Agency for ������app, Fusion for Energy, has signed a four-year Framework Partnership Agreement with a consortium formed by European research centres—DTU Denmark and IST-IPFN Portugal—for the development and design of the Collective Thompson Scattering diagnostic for ������app.

The primary objective of the Collective Thomson Scattering (CTS) diagnostic is to monitor fast ion behaviour across the plasma radius in seven locations. are elusive particles that are a natural consequence of the fusion process and plasma heating techniques. Although they represent less than five percent of plasma density, fast ions carry up to one-third of the plasma's kinetic energy. Optimizing their confinement within the plasma is important as they play a major part in sustaining the high plasma temperatures required for fusion by colliding with—and transferring their energy to—the 'bulk' particles in the plasma.

However, fast ions behave unpredictably; while some remain within the magnetic field, others escape the plasma and reduce confinement, or 'cause mischief' by contributing their energy to and amplifying plasma disturbances.

The CTS diagnostic system will consist of mirrors and antennas integrated into one of the equatorial ports of the ������app machine. The upper antenna and mirrors will launch a powerful, single and high frequency microwave beam (1 MW at 60 GHz, equivalent to 1,000 microwave ovens at full power) into the plasma and record the scattered electromagnetic waves through the lower mirrors and receiver antennas. These measurements will allow scientists to establish the dynamics and distribution of the ions in the plasma—in particular the fast ions.

Visit the EFDA website to read the May issue of Fusion in Europe on line.

Article highlights include the latest news on the establishment of EUROfusion—the umbrella organization of European fusion research that will succeed EFDA; upgrade work on the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST); this year's work program for JET, currently the largest functioning tokamak in the world; and news from some of the younger faces of fusion.

Consult Fusion in Europe .