Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     Ian Chapman is the CEO of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority. He said that there had been an ageing workforce in the U.K. ten years ago. However, a training push over the past decade meant that more than half the workforce was now under forty. He added that steps had been taken to ensure the experience and knowledge built up over the past decades at JET would not be lost when it switches to its decommissioning phase at the end of the year.
    Andrew Bowie is the U.K. Nuclear Minister. He outlined details of the U.K.’s Fusion Futures Program (FFP). He said that the FFP would see seven hundred ninety-three million dollars spent over the next five years on a package of measures. These measures will include the creation of two thousand two hundred training places, a new fuel cycle testing facility and funding to develop infrastructure for private fusion companies. UKAEA’s Culham campus will be included. He said, “We have a golden opportunity to be at the cutting-edge of fusion and lead the way in its commercialization as the ultimate clean energy source.”
      There was much discussion of collaboration being key in the future. Chapman was asked about the U.K. government’s decision not to continue as part of the ITER project. He said that the U.K. was still involved in some work that predated the Brexit-related end of new contracts. He added that the U.K. and ITER had a “lot to offer” and both hoped to continue to collaborate and hoped for success “as soon as possible”.
      Barabaschi said that ITER itself continued to work on the project’s revised timeline. He noted that the new timeline was expected to be agreed upon and announced in mid-2024. The original timeline was agreed upon in 2016. It called for first plasma in 2025 but that it is now set to be substantially delayed. He added that the timeline update would “not be good news but we will go ahead, and we will succeed, I’m very sure about that”.
     The Eurofusion consortium of fusion laboratories around Europe ran experiments at JET in 2021 designed to explore extreme conditions expected at ITER and future fusion plants such as reaching a temperature of one hundred and fifty million degrees million Celsius. Costanza Maggi is a UKAEA fellow and former JET Task Force Leader. He said, “One of our most eye-catching results is the first direct observation of the fusion fuel keeping itself hot through alpha heating. This is the process where high-energy helium ions (alpha particles) coming out of the fusion reaction transfer their heat to the surrounding fuel mix to keep the fusion process going. Studying this process under realistic conditions is crucial to developing fusion power plant.”
     Eurofusion also said that the experiments “confirmed predictions from advanced computer models for heat transport inside the plasma, which are crucial to extrapolate results from current experimental setups to larger future machines like ITER and the demonstration fusion power plant DEMO”.

Ambient office = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 106 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 111 nanosieverts per hour

Watermelon from Central Market = 75 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 70 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 63 nanosieverts per hour

Part 1 of 2 Parts
     The 29th International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Fusion Energy Conference was held from the 16th to the 21st of October 2023. The first edition of World Fusion Outlook as well as their plans to form a World Fusion Energy Group will be unveiled at the conference. In addition, updates on progress across the nuclear fusion industry and new investment from the U.K. host were also shared.
     The event was held in the U.K. for the first time since 1984. It was opened by IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. He began the event by wishing a happy 40th anniversary to the soon-to-be closed Joint European Torus. He said, “the first tritium experiment in Europe, breaker of scientific records, producer of generations of accomplished scientists and engineers, and a true magnet for international collaboration”.
     Grossi outlined some of the breakthroughs and achievements by fusion experts over the two years since the previous conference was held. He added that current momentum and enthusiasm made it “crucial moment in the development of the field” and that fusion was moving “out of the laboratories and experimental centers”. He went on to say that credible pathways were needed to achieve the ambition of bringing fusion energy to the world economy.
     The IAEA plans to create the World Fusion Energy Group by bringing together the “next leg of the fusion energy journey will get us from experiment to demonstration to commercial fusion energy production”. Before their first meeting next year, he said that the IAEA  would “shortly invite fusion experts to work with the IAEA to outline Fusion Key Elements such as fusion-related definitions, characteristics and criteria for fusion energy to help develop common understanding among stakeholders essential for global deployment”.
     During the opening session of the six-day conference in London, the first edition of the World Fusion Outlook was published and distributed to the attendees. The IAEA said that they intend it to be a regular publication providing “authoritative information and updates on fusion energy” and to become “a global reference for energy R&D, technology development and prospective deployment of fusion as a source of unlimited low carbon energy”.
     Grossi called nuclear fusion energy the “grand engineering endeavor of the 21st Century”. He added that even if nuclear fusion does not play a big role in meeting the world’s climate goals by 2050, “the world will continue after 2050 and it will need clean energy on a massive scale beyond that date” and “while we may have different views on how exactly the global energy landscape will look in the coming years, we all see a place for fusion”.
    Pietro Barabaschi is the director general of the multinational International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project in France. One of the issues he raised was ensuring there was a sufficient, and skilled, workforce for fusion development. The conference attendees were told that there was a need to recruit people who had retired, because of skills and knowledge they had.
Please read Part 2 next

Ambient office = 103 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 114 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 111 nanosieverts per hour

Vine ripened tomato from Central Market = 96 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 74 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 59 nanosieverts per hour

     The Government of Niger has confirmed its “full support” for Global Atomic Corporation’s (GAC) Dasa uranium project, according to GAC. The project intends to make its first yellowcake deliveries to utilities in 2025. The project will not be influenced by a recent U.S. decision to put a hold on U.S. Development Bank financing following the coup that took place in Niger earlier this year.
     On the 10th of October, the U.S. State Department officially designated the events in the African republic at the end of July 2023 as a “coup d’état”. Most U.S. assistance to the government of Niger has been suspended pending action by Niger to return to “democratic governance”. This includes the U.S. Development Bank financing. The suspension does not apply to humanitarian, food and health assistance.
     GAC has its headquarters in Toronto, Canada. It is developing a high-grade uranium deposit sixty-five miles south of the established uranium mining town of Arlit. GAC said that it has been “engaged in contingency planning with parties interested in non-dilutive financing options at the operating level” from groups interested in purchasing uranium from the mine.
     Existing uranium offtake agreements with utilities are unaffected by the State Department decision, according to GAC. The company has no “no immediate need to finance” because it has sufficient cash on hand for the next year. GAC recently announced its third offtake agreement for the sale of as much as three and a half million pounds of U2O8 from the project to a North American utility beginning in 2026. It has received additional Requests for Proposal for uranium offtake agreements from utilities. Almost one and a half million pounds of U2O8 over the first five years of the mine’s operation, representing almost thirty percent of the scheduled production, are now contracted under such offtake agreements.
     Stephen Roman is the Global Atomic President and CEO. He said, “The Government of Niger has confirmed its full support for the Dasa Project and recognizes it’s a new mine that will benefit the Republic of Niger by creating new jobs and opportunities for local business and revitalize the northern region of the country. The Government has offered its encouragement in the development of Dasa and all support required to accelerate construction and the start of mining operations.”
     Logistics issues regarding importing goods into Niger are being addressed by the government. Niger has recently given full approval for the transport of goods via ports in Ghana and Togo and overland via Burkina Faso, according to GAC. Internal cargo flights are expected to be restored shortly.
     Mine excavation began at Dasa in 2022. The project’s 2021 Phase1 Feasibility Study estimates that yellowcake delivered to utilities can begin in 2025. A revised mine plan for Dasa that will integrate recently updated mineral resource figures is nearing completion. It will form the basis of a revised feasibility study to be completed in the first half of 2024, according to GAC.
     Hopefully, Niger will return to “democratic governance” soon so regular commercial operations can be restored.

Ambient office = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 113 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 118 nanosieverts per hour

Tomato from Central Market = 143 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 81 nanosieverts per hour