Subscribe options

Select your newsletters:

Please enter your email address:

@

Your email address will only be used for the purpose of sending you the ITER Organization publication(s) that you have requested. ITER Organization will not transfer your email address or other personal data to any other party or use it for commercial purposes.

If you change your mind, you can easily unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe option at the bottom of an email you've received from ITER Organization.

For more information, see our Privacy policy.

News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Vacuum components | Shake, rattle, and... qualify!

    A public-private testing partnership certified that ITER's vacuum components can withstand major seismic events. Making sure the ITER tokamak will be safe in th [...]

    Read more

  • Feeders | Delivering the essentials

    Like a circle of giant syringes all pointing inward, the feeders transport and deliver the essentials to the 10,000-tonne ITER magnet system—that is, electrical [...]

    Read more

  • Image of the week | It's FAB season

    It's FAB season at ITER. Like every year since 2008, the Financial Audit Board (FAB) will proceed with a meticulous audit of the project's finances, siftin [...]

    Read more

  • Disruption mitigation | Final design review is a major step forward

    The generations of physicists, engineers, technicians and other specialists who have worked in nuclear fusion share a common goal, dedication and responsibility [...]

    Read more

  • Image of the week | Like grasping a bowl of cereal

    Contrary to the vast majority of ITER machine components, the modules that form the central solenoid cannot be lifted by way of hooks and attachments. The 110-t [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

ITER NEWSLINE -

World-class fusion research to resume on NSTX spherical tokamak

The National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade team at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in the US. Photo: PPPL (Click to view larger version...)
The National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade team at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in the US. Photo: PPPL
At the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), world-leading fusion research resumes later this fall. After more than six years of planning and construction—including three years of building and 574,000 hours of labour—the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U) is ready to play a critical role in the quest to develop fusion energy as a clean, safe and virtually limitless fuel for generating electricity.

The $94 million overhaul has made the machine the most powerful spherical tokamak in the world. The upgrade has doubled its heating power and magnetic field strength, lengthened its operation from one second to five seconds and increased its plasma performance by a factor of 10. The improvements create a flexible research platform that will enable some of fusion's most outstanding puzzles to be directly addressed.

"This achievement signifies the completion of an extremely successful challenge, which opens the door to a decade or more of exciting research," said PPPL Director Stewart Prager. "The world will now be watching to see if this experiment can serve to further improve our vision for future reactors."

The new machine passed stringent tests to reach construction completion. On 11 May 2015, operators produced 40,000 electron-volts from a second neutral beam—a device used to heat the plasma—to demonstrate the first step in doubling the heating power. Then, on 10 August, engineers produced a 100,000-amp plasma—the fuel for fusion reactions. The twin achievements easily met the Key Performance Parameters (KPP) that the project had to satisfy to be completed. "This is not a little spherical torus anymore," said Al von Halle, the head of NSTX-U engineering and operations. "This machine has 10 times the capability of the original NSTX."

[...]

Continue reading on the PPPL website.

return to the latest published articles