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FUSION
ENERGY
Scientists from Russia and Japan to Europe and the United States have long sought to develop fusion as an abundant, safe, and environmentally friendly source of electric power. To reach this ambitious goal, they must overcome problems in a range of scientific and engineering disciplines. ORNL is known in the international fusion community as a laboratory that has made strong contributions in virtually every discipline of fusion science and engineering and that has the skills to maintain a central role in developing fusion energy. Need to heat and fuel a plasma? ORNL researchers developed the physics and technology of bullet-like solid hydrogen pellets, high-frequency microwave tubes hundreds of times more powerful than a home microwave oven, and particle beams and radiofrequency heating systems with megawatts of power to heat fusion plasmas many millions of degrees. Need a better magnetic confinement system? ORNL researchers have developed improved magnetic "bottles" that are being tested in facilities in Madrid, Oxford, Moscow, and Princeton, and in new facilities under way in Princeton and Oak Ridge (i.e., the Quasi-Poloidal Stellarator, an approach to developing a smaller, less costly fusion device). These new facilities have been developed using ORNL's state-of-the- art computers. Need longer lasting, more reliable materials? New materials that meet the needs of engineering test reactors have been developed at ORNL. Thanks to ORNL's unique irradiation and microcharacterization facilities, researchers are obtaining a fundamental understanding of how materials respond to radiation, enabling the creation of better materials. Here are some selected highlights in ORNL's fusion energy career. To produce as much energy by sustained fusion reactions as is introduced into the fusion device (energy breakeven), certain conditions must be met. They are a sufficiently high fusion plasma temperature and density for a long enough timethe so-called Lawson criterion. In 1978 ORNL's high-power neutral beam injection plasma heating system, developed under the leadership of Hal Haselton, enabled a tokamak at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) to achieve a record plasma temperature. The Lawson criterion was first exceeded in 1983 in a landmark experiment on the Alcator-C tokamak at MIT using a fueling technique pioneered by Stan Milora and others at ORNL in which "bullets" of frozen hydrogen were fired into the plasma chamber from a gas gun. In 1986, a record Lawson parameter was set on PPPL's Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor in experiments performed by Milora and PPPL's G. L. Schmidt using a machine-gun-like fuel injector developed by ORNL. In short, ORNL is known for applying its broad capabilities to advancing magnetic fusion to meet the goal of producing practical power.—Lee Berry |
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