Oak Ridge Today

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

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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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ORNL to receive $497 million in Inflation Reduction Act funding 

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory will receive $497 million from the Inflation Reduction Act for projects that include nuclear fusion and neutron research, supercomputing, materials science, and radioisotope production. More than half of the money, 52% of it, will be used for U.S. contributions to an international nuclear fusion project.

ORNL’s $497 million is about one-third of the $1.55 billion provided to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science by the Democrat-led Congress under the IRA. President Joe Biden signed the IRA, which included a range of provisions and passed along party lines, into law in August. It provides money for more than 52 DOE projects already in the works.

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General Fusion locating U.S. headquarters in Oak Ridge

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General Fusion Corporation will locate its U.S. headquarters in Oak Ridge as the company advances plans for a commercial pilot plant, Tennessee officials and company executives announced Wednesday.

The headquarters decision was announced Wednesday by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Bob Rolfe, and General Fusion Corporation executives.

General Fusion Corporation is based in Vancouver, Canada. The company says fusion could provide a carbon-free power source that would meet the growing global energy demand while fighting climate change.

The U.S.-based subsidiary of General Fusion Incorporated will initially invest $539,000 and create 20 new jobs in Anderson County during the next five years, a press release said. It’s the first private fusion company to establish an office in Tennessee, General Fusion said. The new headquarters in Oak Ridge will be near Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a science and energy lab that is home to the U.S. ITER program. ITER is an experimental fusion device being built in southern France through an international collaboration and planned to be the first such device to produce net energy.

In Oak Ridge, General Fusion said it will collaborate with “world-leading fusion scientists and tap into key engineering talent.”

[Read more…]

International fusion energy project to be discussed

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David Rasmussen

 

An international fusion energy project that involves Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be discussed in an online meeting on Wednesday, May 19.

The featured speaker will be David Rasmussen, the leader of the technical integration of the U.S. contributions to the international fusion project, which is under construction in France and known as ITER.

Rasmussen’s areas of responsibility have included the ITER plasma heating and fueling systems, a press release said. He has been a plasma research scientist at ORNL since 1981. He has more than 35 years of fusion and plasma science experience in diagnostic measurements and the technology development needed for magnetic confinement fusion and other plasma technology applications, the release said. Rasmussen received a Ph.D. in applied science, specializing in plasma physics, from the University of California at Davis in 1981 where his graduate work was a study of inertial laser fusion wave plasma interactions.

The May 19 talk is hosted by ORION, an amateur science and astronomy club based in Oak Ridge. The talk is scheduled to begin on Zoom at 7 p.m. May 19, and it is open to the public. If you are interested in joining, the Zoom meeting ID is 885 2873 5960, and the passcode is 716689. Alternatively, you can follow this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88528735960?pwd=KzY4bnBHcjlhTzg3L3pOcjY0TFovUT09. [Read more…]

Fusion research: ORNL chosen for plasma materials experiment facility

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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…]

Senate bill also rejects Trump’s science cut, increases funding instead

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Energy Secretary Rick Perry, left, talks to reporters after touring Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Manufacturing Demonstration Facility on Hardin Valley Road on Monday, May 22, 2017. Also pictured is U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, center, a Tennessee Republican, and ORNL Director Thom Mason. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, center, a Tennessee Republican, is pictured above with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, left, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility in Hardin Valley on Monday, May 22, 2017. Also pictured is former ORNL Director Thom Mason. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

An appropriations bill approved by a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday rejects the Trump administration’s proposal to cut $919 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science in the fiscal year that starts October 1.

Instead of cutting, the Senate bill would actually increase funding for the Office of Science, boosting it to $5.55 billion in fiscal year 2018. That would be again a record funding level in a regular appropriations bill, according to U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who often advocates for the federal sites in Oak Ridge and chairs the Senate subcommittee.

Like the Senate this week, the House Appropriations Committee last week also rejected President Donald Trump’s request to cut DOE’s Office of Science.

Unlike the Senate bill, though, the House bill would keep funding flat at $5.39 billion, the same as in the current fiscal year. That level of funding was also a record in a regular appropriations bill, Alexander said in May.

The Office of Science is the nation’s largest supporter of research in the physical sciences.

The president’s budget request, submitted to Congress on May 23, would cut Office of Science funding by about 17 percent, dropping it to $4.47 billion.

Keeping Office of Science funding flat, or even increasing it, could be important to several of the federal sites in Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is an Office of Science lab, and the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, or OSTI, is an Office of Science unit. [Read more…]

Friday lecture: Man’s quest for fusion, the role of ITER

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Mark Henderson

Mark Henderson

A member of the technical staff at ITER, a magnetic fusion device in southern France, will discuss man’s quest for fusion and the role of ITER in a Friday evening lecture in Oak Ridge.

The lecture starts at 6 p.m. Friday, May 20, at the American Museum of Science and Energy. It will be by Mark Henderson, member of the Technical Staff, ITER Organization in St. Paul-les-Durrance, France.

Henderson will provide a first-hand account of the wide scope of technologies involved in operation of the ITER tokamak (the magnetic fusion device), as well as the current status of design, development, and construction of the experimental fusion facility, a press release said. ITER is the only fusion device in the world that is presently being designed to achieve a burning plasma of hydrogen isotopes. [Read more…]

Alexander: Bill raises Office of Science funding to highest-ever, includes UPF, supercomputing, cleanup funding

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U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander

Lamar Alexander

A bill approved by a U.S. Senate subcommittee on Tuesday would give $5.144 billion to the federal agency that oversees work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It’s the highest level of funding ever for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which oversees 10 national labs, including ORNL, federal officials said.

The bill would also provide $430 million for the proposed Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex, which will “continue to keep this project on time and on budget,” according to a press release from the office of U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican.

Alexander’s office also said the legislation would provide funding for:

  • a new mercury treatment plant in Oak Ridge,
  • cleanup of nuclear facilities that are no longer in service,
  • nuclear infrastructure at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and
  • advanced computing, which supports the new Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The bill was unanimously approved on a voice vote by the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development on Tuesday afternoon. Alexander is chair of that subcommittee, and he said the approval shows that there is bipartisan support for energy research, waterways, and national security. [Read more…]

FORNL has third talk on international thermonuclear project on Tuesday

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Graeme Murdoch

Graeme Murdoch

Friends of Oak Ridge National Laboratory will have its third talk on the U.S. ITER project on Tuesday. ITER is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, and it will be constructed at Cadarache, France, and is expected to be completed within 10 years.

The Friends of ORNL lecture starts at noon Tuesday at the University of Tennessee Resource Center. It will feature Graeme Murdoch, who will discuss U.S. ITER non-nuclear systems.

“The United States has joined with China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, and Russia to construct and operate ITER, a full-scale, 500 megawatt experimental fusion device,” a press release said. “U.S. Contributions to ITER include hardware (with supporting research and development and design), personnel (U.S. engineers and scientists) to the ITER site in Cadarache, and cash contributions to the ITER organization. US-supplied hardware includes magnets, blankets, diagnostics, tritium processing, ion cyclotron and electron cyclotron heating and current drive systems, pellet fueling, and more conventional systems such as cooling water and electrical power systems.”

ITER is a large-scale project that presents many engineering challenges, the press release said. [Read more…]

Alexander: Red Team Review of UPF could be model for other DOE projects

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Uranium Processing Facility

Pictured above is the proposed Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12 National Security Complex, with the administrative area in the front and the fortified section of the building in the rear. (Submitted image)

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander on Wednesday called for a special Senate hearing on whether an ongoing review of the Uranium Processing Facility in Oak Ridge could serve as a model to improve oversight of U.S. Department of Energy projects, a press release said.

In a hearing held by the Appropriations Subcommittee for Energy and Water Development, of which he is the lead Republican, Alexander noted that Thom Mason, director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is currently conducting a “Red Team” review of UPF. Mason’s Red Team members are using the same process that has made the Office of Science the only office in DOE that successfully manages efficient and cost-effective projects, said Alexander, a Tennessee Republican. [Read more…]

ORNL division director to discuss international thermonuclear reactor Tuesday

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Hans Vogel

Hans Vogel

A division director at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will discuss heating, fueling, and cooling the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) project at ORNL during a Tuesday meeting in Oak Ridge.

The lunchtime meeting featuring Hans Vogel will be hosted by Friends of ORNL.

This will be the second in a series of three talks on the U.S. ITER project. The next one on May 13 will feature Graeme Murdoch.

During the Tuesday talk, Vogel, who is the ORNL Nuclear Systems division director, will discuss the Tokamak cooling water system, ion cyclotron transmission lines, electron cyclotron transmission lines, pellet injection system, disruption mitigation system, and the tokamak exhaust processing system. These systems are valued at more than $500 million, a press release said. [Read more…]

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

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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…]