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?The search for star power ¡ª fusion ¡ª has received a major boost with the launch of the Australian Plasma Fusion Research Facility (APFRF) at The Australian National University.

The facility includes Australia's largest fusion experiment, the newly upgraded H1, which will now be able to heat fusion experiments to temperatures hotter than the core of the sun.

The facility also includes a new machine, MagPIE, which will accelerate research into extreme materials to be used in future experiments involving even higher temperatures and radiation levels.

Senator Zed Seselja pressed the button to initiate a 30,000 degrees Celsius fusion experiment in H1 to conclude the launch. "This facility and its fine team have a reputation for world-class innovation and research excellence," Senator Seselja said.

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"ITER's design hinges on experiments being carried out in experiments around the world, such as the Plasma Fusion Research Facility at ANU," said the Director General of ITER, Osamu Motojima.

Dr Adi Paterson, CEO of ANSTO, said the choice of materials for use in ITER is an active research area, to which MagPIE is already contributing, in collaboration with ANSTO (Australia's national nuclear research and development organisation), which part funded the project.

"Power plant fusion plasmas present an extreme materials challenge. This facility helps us to test whether prototype new materials can withstand the heat flux damage inflicted by a fusion plasma," Dr Paterson said.

At the same event a five-year plan for fusion research was launched laying out pathways to Australian ITER involvement and enhancements to national experimental fusion science capabilities.

The upgrade to H1 was made possible through a Commonwealth investment of $7.9 million from the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme (NCRIS) and associated programs.

Read more about ANU and its Plasma Fusion Research Facility .

?A major EUR 283 million contract has been signed between the European Commission and the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) that enables CCFE to continue to operate JET¡ªfor use by the EUROfusion consortium of European fusion research laboratories¡ªuntil the end of 2018.

CCFE has been operating JET, Europe's largest fusion energy experiment, for fusion scientists around the continent since 2000. But the new agreement represents the largest-ever single contract to be awarded to CCFE and gives Culham and the European fusion program unprecedented security of funding for five years. This enables future experimental programs and further upgrades to JET to be planned with confidence and secures its position as a science and engineering test bed for its international successor ITER, under construction in France.

CCFE Director Steve Cowley is delighted with the agreement on the contract: "This is great news for the highly-skilled CCFE staff who work on JET and for the European fusion program. We are determined to make the most of this investment and push JET towards ever-improving performance in the years to come."

-- Nick Holloway

Source: Culham Centre for Fusion Energy ()

?Aerial views of the ITER platform, close-ups of the steel reinforcement in the Tokamak Seismic Pit, reportage-like images of pouring operations and component manufacturing... nothing illustrates the progress of the ITER Project better than photographs.

These pictures¡ªsome which have appeared in the publications ITER Newsline and ITER Mag and others that you'll be discovering for the first time¡ªhave been assembled in a 45-page photo book titled ITER, Progress in Pictures.

This new ITER communication tool will be updated at least once a year. A pdf version is available here or in the Brochures section of the ITER website's Publication Centre.