Fusion News

Eureka 18-AUG-2017 IMAGE: THIS IS PHYSICIST ERIC FREDRICKSON, LEAD AUTHOR OF THE PAPER, IN THE NSTX-U CONTROL ROOM. CREDIT: ELLE STARKMAN/PPPL OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS Scientists have discovered a remarkably simple way to suppress a common instability that can halt fusion reactions and damage the walls of reactors built to create a “star in a jar.” … Read more

PPPL August 17, 2017 Photo by Elle Starkman/Office of Communications Engineers Andrei Khodak and Irving Zatz with poster for pole shields Fusion power, which lights the sun and stars, requires temperatures of millions of degrees to fuse the particles inside plasma, a soup of charged gas that fuels fusion reactions. Here on Earth, scientists developing … Read more

Nuclear Focus Applied Fusion Systems recently released a video to explain Nuclear Fusion and encourage investors to fund their project. Additionally, Applied Fusion Systems’ CEO, Richard Dinan has written a book: ‘The Fusion Age: Modern Nuclear Fusion Reactors’ to explain to investors how the planned reactors will work and why they should back fusion. Question: … Read more

ARPA-E’s ALPHA program seeks to create and demonstrate tools to aid in the development of new, lower-cost pathways to fusion power and to enable more rapid progress in fusion research and development. Assuming we achieve excess energy production from a fusion core, a next critical step is to understand the capital costs associated with a … Read more

E. A. Baltz, E. Trask, M. Binderbauer, M. Dikovsky, H. Gota, R. Mendoza, J. C. Platt & P. F. Riley Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 6425 (2017) doi:10.1038/s41598-017-06645-7 July 25, 2017 Abstract Many fields of basic and applied science require efficiently exploring complex systems with high dimensionality. An example of such a challenge is optimising … Read more

Abstract Providing an efficacious plasma facing surface between the extreme plasma heat exhaust and the structural materials of nuclear fusion devices is a major challenge on the road to electricity production by fusion power plants. The performance of solid plasma facing surfaces may become critically reduced over time due to progressing damage accumulation. Liquid metals, … Read more

Hexapolis SUKANYA MUKHERJEE FEBRUARY 4, 2017 Inside MIT’s Alcator C-Mod Tokamak nuclear fusion reactor Nuclear fusion has long been hailed as a near-perfect solution to the burgeoning global energy crisis. Centered around the replication of reactions occurring in the sun, this process involves the fusion of two lightweight atoms like hydrogen at extremely high temperatures, … Read more

PPPL By Raphael Rosen | August 9, 2017 PPPL physicist Mario Podestà A computer code used by physicists around the world to analyze and predict tokamak experiments can now approximate the behavior of highly energetic atomic nuclei, or ions, in fusion plasmas more accurately than ever. The new capability, developed by physicist Mario Podestà at … Read more

PPPL By Jeanne Jackson DeVoe | August 7, 2017 (Photo by Courtesy of Alexandra LeViness ) Fulbright scholar Alexandra LeViness shortly after graduating from the University of Alabama. Alexandra LeViness, a former Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) student who will join Princeton University’s graduate program in plasma physics in 2018, has won a prestigious Fulbright … Read more

NPRE Illinois Jul 17, 2017 Fresh from his year in France as a Fulbright Grantee working on the ITER project, one of the most ambitious energy projects in the world today, Matthew Parsons has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to support his PhD work in Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at … Read more