Legislative efforts highlight challenging path for fusion energy

Energywire Christa Marshall, E&E reporter March 18, 2016 The fusion debate on Capitol Hill is heating up. The issue popped up in a flurry of letters, bills and comments in the past week as appropriators weighed proposed cuts to the Department of Energy’s overall fusion budget. Congress also is waiting for a report from Energy … Read more

Compressing turbulence to improve inertial confinement fusion experiments

PPPL March 15, 2016 Compression of a turbulent plasma. Image by Seth Davidovits Physicists have long regarded plasma turbulence as unruly behavior that can limit the performance of fusion experiments. But new findings by researchers associated with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at … Read more

US Energy Dept hails progress on road to nuclear fusion

The Nation March 12, 2016 The path to creating sustainable fusion energy as a clean, abundant and affordable source of electricity has led to a point where the international fusion experiment, ITER, is poised to produce more energy than it uses when it is completed in 15 to 20 years, said Ed Synakowski, associate director … Read more

Uncertainty Quantification at the 100 Million Degree Edge of the Burning Tokamak Plasma

University of Liverpool Supervisor(s) Edoardo Patelli (Engineering) Rob Akers (CCFE) Gillian Murray (VEC) Funding details a stipend of £17,057 pa for 4 years. For exceptional candidates this may increased. Starting Arrangements start date as soon as possible Restrictions on student nationality UK only The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) is one of Europe’s leading … Read more

As hot as it gets

nature.com Nature Physics 12, 14–17 (2016) doi:10.1038/nphys3625 Published online 07 January 2016 Didier Mazon, Christel Fenzi & Roland Sabot Sustaining and measuring high temperatures in fusion plasmas is a challenging task that requires different heating systems and diagnostic tools. Information on the spatial distribution of temperature is one of the key elements for improving and … Read more

PPPL engineers design and build state-of-the-art controller for AC to DC converter that manages plasma in upgraded fusion machine

PPPL By Raphael Rosen | March 7, 2016 PPPL scientists Robert Mozulay and Weiguo Que (Photo by Hans Schneider) The electric current that powers fusion experiments requires superb control. Without it, the magnetic coils the current drives cannot contain and shape the plasma that fuels experiments in doughnut-shaped tokamaks correctly. One of the digital firing … Read more

Nuclear industry congratulates General Fusion and Terrestrial Energy on receiving sustainable development grants

Canadian Nuclear Association OTTAWA (March 7, 2016) – The Canadian Nuclear Association (CNA) today congratulates CNA members General Fusion and Terrestrial Energy on recently being awarded grants from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC). “The federal government’s grants to General Fusion and Terrestrial are recognition that nuclear energy is a sustainable form of low-carbon energy,” said … Read more

Multi-scale simulations solve a plasma turbulence mystery

Phys.org March 7, 2016 Image of the inside of MIT’s Alcator C-Mod tokamak, with a representative cross-section of a plasma. The inset shows the approximate domain for one of the multi-scale simulations and a graphic of the plasma turbulence in the multi-scale simulation. Credit: Nathan Howard, MIT Cutting-edge simulations run at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s … Read more