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Cold, powerful magnet will help control hot plasma in fusion reactor

Posted at 8:39 am January 13, 2023
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

A team at ITER, an international experimental fusion reactor in southern France, prepare on Feb. 10, 2022, to move one of six modules for a central solenoid, a powerful superconducting magnet being built by General Atomics in California under the management of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo used with permission. © ITER Organization, http://www.iter.org/)

A magnet so powerful it could lift an aircraft carrier six feet into the air was designed in a project managed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It will be used in an international experimental reactor in southern France to produce energy using fusion, the same process used by the sun and other stars to create heat and light. If successful, the reactor could revolutionize energy production, potentially showing how to provide a nearly limitless energy supply without planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions or long-lived radioactive wastes.

Six modules for the reactor’s central superconducting magnet, plus a spare, are being made by General Atomics in Poway, California. Two of the modules have already been shipped to France. Two more are completed, with one of those expected to ship this year. The remaining three are more than 60% complete, and manufacturing should be done this year, said John Smith, General Atomics senior director of engineering and projects. 

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Filed Under: Federal, Front Page News, Government, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL, Premium Content, Slider, State, U.S. Department of Energy Tagged With: central solenoid, Department of Energy Office of Science, electron cyclotron, fusion, fusion plasma, fusion power, fusion reactor, General Atomics, inertial confinement fusion, Inflation Reduction Act, ion cyclotron, ITER, JET, John Smith, Joint European Torus, Kathryn McCarthy, magnet, magnetic confinement fusion, National Ignition Facility, NIF, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL, plasma, superconducting cable, superconducting magnet, tokamak, US ITER

Fusion research: ORNL chosen for plasma materials experiment facility

Posted at 6:29 pm March 1, 2020
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Scientists use a laser to align the plasma created at the Proto-MPEX (Materials Plasma Exposure Experiment) machine at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo credit: Ted Biewer/ORNL, U.S. Department of Energy)

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been chosen as the site of an experimental facility to test materials that would withstand the harsh conditions of the plasmas created in fusion devices, which, researchers hope, could eventually provide carbon-free energy to people around the world.

The proposed facility, the Materials Plasma Exposure Experiment facility, or MPEX, has an estimated cost range between $87 million and $175 million. It would be in an existing facility in an area at ORNL known as the Energy Systems Test Complex.

Fusion devices would use the same reactions that power the sun. Temperatures inside a fusion reactor could reach millions of degrees.

Scientists are studying materials that could withstand the conditions inside fusion reactors by exposing them to prototypical plasma conditions. Plasma, the heated matter created in a fusion device, has high-energy neutrons, electrons, and ions. MPEX would study materials that face the plasma. Finding materials capable of withstanding the harsh environment remains a major hurdle to using fusion to produce energy.

A critical decision for the MPEX facility was completed in early February by the U.S. Department of Energy. ORNL is a DOE Office of Science lab. The critical decision, CD-1, is the second step in the five-step process that DOE uses to manage projects. The CD-1 decision included an alternative selection and a cost range.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Front Page News, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL, Science, Slider, U.S. Department of Energy Tagged With: DOE, fusion, fusion experiment, fusion materials, fusion plasma, fusion power, fusion reactor, International Tokamak Experimental Reasctor, ITER, Juergen Rapp, Materials Plasma eXposure Experiment, MPEX, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Office of Science, ORNL, plasma, Proto-MPEX, U.S. Department of Energy

Chief engineer for U.S. ITER at ORNL to give project overview on Tuesday

Posted at 9:21 am March 10, 2014
By Oak Ridge Today Staff Leave a Comment

Brad Nelson

Brad Nelson

The chief engineer for the U.S. ITER Project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will give a project overview on Tuesday.

Brad Nelson is the chief engineer for the U.S. International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor Project. His Tuesday talk will be the first in a series of three presentations on the U.S. ITER project to Friends of ORNL, with Hans Vogel speaking on April 8 and Graeme Murdoch speaking on May 13.

The New Yorker published a story on ITER in its March 3 edition titled “A Star in a Bottle” by Raffi Khatchadourian.

Nelson’s Tuesday presentation during a Friends of ORNL luncheon lecture starts at noon at the University of Tennessee Resource Center in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Community, Front Page News, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Science Tagged With: A Star in a Bottle, Brad Nelson, Cadarache, China, European Union, France, Friends of ORNL, fusion, fusion device, fusion power, Graeme Murdoch, Hans Vogel, hardware, India, International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ITER, Japan, Korea, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Office of Science, ORNL, Raffi Khatchadourian, Russia, The New Yorker, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. ITER, United States, University of Tennessee Resource Center

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