From PPPL- “Boon to fusion: Scientist finds new way to predict heat layer troublemaker”
August 20, 2012
By John Greenwald
“Researchers at a recent worldwide conference on fusion power have confirmed the surprising accuracy of a new model for predicting the size of a key barrier to fusion that a top scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has developed. The model could serve as a starting point for overcoming the barrier. ‘This allows you to depict the size of the challenge so you can think through what needs to be done to overcome it,’ said physicist Robert Goldston, the Princeton University professor of astrophysical sciences and former PPPL director who developed the model.
Rob Goldston. (Photo credit; Elle Starkman, PPPL Office of Communications)
Goldston was among physicists who presented aspects of the model in late May to the 20th Annual International Conference on Plasma Surface Interactions in Aachen, Germany. Some 400 researchers from around the world attended the conference. Results of the model have been ‘eerily close’ to the data, said Thomas Eich, a senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching, Germany, who gave an invited talk on his measurements. The agreement appears too close to have happened by chance, Eich added.
See the full and very exciting article here.
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory managed by Princeton University.
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