Fusion News

E&T Magazine 6 March 2015 By Tereza Pultarova French nuclear energy expert Bernard Bigot was appointed ITER’s new Director General [Credit: ITER] French nuclear energy expert Bernard Bigot has been appointed the new Director General of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) as the project moves from the design to construction phase after years of … Read more

TokamakTales by Ailsa Sparkes, Friday, 27 February 2015 When some of the graduates went to the KIT summer school on Fusion technologies last year (see blog post here), David Ward from CCFE gave a talk entitled ‘Future Energy and the Role for Fusion’. As well as leading CCFE’s Power Plant Technology Unit, David works at … Read more

With its promise of virtually unlimited clean energy, nuclear fusion has long been a goal of physicists. With the enormous ITER experimental reactor under construction in the south of France, Antony Funnell takes a look at the feasibility of replicating the Sun here on Earth. ABC Future Tense Wednesday 25 February 2015 Antony Funnell IMAGE: … Read more

Paris Tech February 23rd, 2015 Rising energy consumption round the world, rarefaction of fossil energy sources, climate change, the necessary reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions… The development of new and renewable energy sectors, emitting few or zero GHGs has become primordial. Faced with this inevitable energy transition phase, nuclear fusion could be justified, provided … Read more

physicsworld.com Feb 16, 2015 Hot topic: size may not be everything in tokamak design Researchers from the UK firm Tokamak Energy say that future fusion reactors could be made much smaller than previously envisaged – yet still deliver the same energy output. That claim is based on calculations showing that the fusion power gain – … Read more

AIP Scitation Steven T. Corneliussen, October 2014 “The old promise of atoms for peace was a noble one, but ultimately flawed because the technology wasn’t right for it,” declares Thomas McGuire in a 4-minute public relations video. He leads a fusion energy project at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, famous for originating, among other things, the … Read more

IHS Global Spec Roger Pink, Ph.D., 16 December 2014 A Lockheed Martin Skunk Works team is working on a compact fusion reactor (CFR) that could be developed and deployed in as little as 10 years. The lead scientist on the project, Thomas McGuire, said in an October 15 press release that the company’s compact fusion … Read more

Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics October 23, 2014 Lockheed Martin’s compact reactor concept / fusion drives for aircraft and trucks? The magnetic coils inside of the compact fusion experiment are critical to plasma containment. Photo: Lockheed Martin Building a small, transportable fusion power plant has long been a dream of fusion researchers. In the … Read more

Popular Mechanics Thorium This radioactive metal is three to four times more common than uranium, and, unlike uranium, it doesn’t generate weapons-grade nuclear material after it’s burned in a reactor. (The United Stated experimented with thorium reactors as early as the 1950s, before the element lost out to uranium.) Virginia-based Lightbridge aims to capitalize on … Read more

Last Tech Age 2013/03/26 The $1 billion MFTF-B fusion experiment was built, then dismantled before it was turned on — our first sign of the politicization of fusion. Energy independence should be an issue important to everyone. Instead, it has been a political issue in and out of the news for many years. MFTF-B was … Read more