Creating energy the way the sun and stars do — through nuclear fusion — is one of the grand challenges facing science and technology. What’s easy for the sun and its billions of relatives turns out to be particularly difficult on Earth.
ORNL biogeochemist Elizabeth Herndon is working with colleagues to investigate a piece of the puzzle that has received little attention thus far: the role of manganese in the carbon cycle.
The prospect of simulating a fusion plasma is a step closer to reality thanks to a new computational tool developed by scientists in fusion physics, computer science and mathematics at ORNL.