Feature Channels: Fusion

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced awards for eight projects with private industry that will allow for collaboration with DOE national laboratories on overcoming challenges in fusion energy development.

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In an important step toward future fusion reactors, scientists have made novel experimental observations of how silicon carbide’s atomic structure changes as it accumulates radiation damage. This material shows promise for use in fusion reactors and other structures. The experiment used two Department of Energy user facilities to identify new details in this deformation and how it occurs.

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Anne White at MIT had a vision for an innovative approach to experiments to aid in the study and understanding of tokamak turbulence. Her work has developed rigorous validation of the models used to detail measurements of the turbulence, towards fusion’s promise of clean and nearly unlimited energy.

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Impurities in the plasmas in tokamaks can reduce performance. These impurities are from interactions between the hot plasma and tungsten tokamak walls. This experiment found that tokamak magnetic fields that rotate clockwise direction can remove these impurities. This is the opposite direction from normal and the same direction the plasma current moves.

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $400 million in funding for a range of research opportunities to support DOE’s clean energy, economic, and national security goals.

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The Department of Energy (DOE) announced three DOE National Laboratory scientists as DOE Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellows. This honor, authorized by the America COMPETES Act, is bestowed on National Laboratory scientists with outstanding records of achievement and provides each Fellow with $1 million over three years to support activities that develop, sustain, and promote scientific and academic excellence in DOE Office of Science research.

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The Compact Advanced Tokamak (CAT) concept uses physics models to show that by carefully shaping the plasma and the distribution of current in the plasma, fusion plant operators can suppress turbulent eddies in the plasma. This would reduce heat loss and allow more efficient reactor operation. This advance could help achieve self-sustaining plasma and smaller, less expensive power plants.

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Researchers are using smaller tokamaks and computer models to test approaches for suppressing runaway electrons in plasmas. This research used measurements and modeling to demonstrate that perturbations to the magnetic field in a tokamak fusion plasma can suppress high-energy runaway electrons. The results could help improve the operation of ITER and other future fusion devices.

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In a conventional tokamak, the cross-section of the plasma is shaped like the letter D. Facing the straight part of the D on the inside side of the donut-shaped tokamak is called positive triangularity. New research suggests that reversing the plasma—negative triangularity--reduces how much the plasma interacts with the surfaces of the tokamak for reduced wear.

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Scientists at PPPL have transferred a technique from one realm of plasma physics to another to enable the more efficient design of powerful magnets for doughnut-shaped fusion facilities known as tokamaks.

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Expert Q&A: Do breakthrough cases mean we will soon need COVID boosters? The extremely contagious Delta variant continues to spread, prompting mask mandates, proof of vaccination, and other measures. Media invited to ask the experts about these and related topics.

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The virtual ninth annual global gathering presented leading experimental and theoretical methods for avoiding or mitigating the greatest challenge to doughnut-shaped tokamak fusion devices.

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Achieving fusion ignition – the process that powers the sun, stars and thermonuclear weapons – has been a decades-long goal for inertial confinement fusion research. On Aug. 8, 2021, an experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) made a significant step toward ignition, achieving a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules (MJ). This is enabled by focusing laser light from NIF - the size of three football fields - onto a target the size of a BB that produces a hot-spot the diameter of a human hair, generating more than 10 quadrillion watts of fusion power for 100 trillionths of a second. This advance puts researchers at the threshold of fusion ignition, an important goal of the NIF, and opens access to a new experimental regime.

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The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory announced that accomplished engineer Ruben Fair, has been named head of the ITER Department, heading PPPL's ITER Team, which is focused on the design and fabrication of six diagnostics for the international fusion experiment.

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Novel camera detects the birth of high-energy runaway electrons, which may lead to determining how to prevent damage caused by the highly energetic particles.

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News release profiles award-winning physicist Elizabeth Paul, whose work advances the development of fusion devices called stellarators that aim to harvest on Earth fusion energy.

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Today, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science (SC) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced $9.35 million for 21 research projects in High-Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas (HEDLP).

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Article profiles 47-year tenure and ground-breaking contributions of distinguished theoretical physicist.

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University of Washington researchers have developed a method that uses a gaming graphics card to control plasma formation in their prototype fusion reactor.

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced awards totaling $127 million to a diverse set of small businesses working on advanced scientific tools and clean, secure energy for the American people.

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This new program will allow undergraduates to conduct research in a wide range of plasma physics topics, including fusion energy, general plasma science, astrophysical plasmas, and accelerator physics.

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These partnerships facilitate breakthroughs in harvesting on Earth the fusion power that drives the sun and stars.

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Zeke Unterberg is a senior research scientist at Oak Ridge National Lab, studying ways to optimize the operations and materials for future nuclear fusion reactors.

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PPPL scientists have developed a path-setting way to measure RF waves that could lead to enhanced future experiments aimed at bringing fusion energy to Earth.

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Scientists uncover new properties of plasma that have wide potential applications for astrophysical and fusion plasmas.

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The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science today announced that 22 million node-hours for 41 scientific projects under the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) Leadership Computing Challenge (ALCC) program.

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The Department of Energy (DOE) today awarded $2.1 million across 9 collaborative projects between DOE national laboratories and private industry aimed at overcoming challenges in fusion energy development.

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Machine learning can improve the ability of scientists to optimize the components of experiments on spherical tokamaks that heat and shape the magnetically confined plasma that fuels fusion reactions.