ORNL will lead a new DOE-funded project designed to accelerate bringing fusion energy to the grid. The Accelerate award focuses on developing a fusion power plant design concept that supports remote maintenance and repair methods for the plasma-facing components in fusion power plants.
Two fusion energy leaders have joined ORNL in the Fusion and Fission Energy and Science Directorate, or FFESD.
ORNL is leading three research collaborations with fusion industry partners through the Innovation Network for FUSion Energy, or INFUSE, program that will focus on resolving technical challenges and developing innovative solutions to make practical fusion energy a reality.
ORNL will lead three new DOE-funded projects designed to bring fusion energy to the grid on a rapid timescale.
Mirko Musa spent his childhood zigzagging his bike along the Po River. The Po, Italy’s longest river, cuts through a lush valley of grain and vegetable fields, which look like a green and gold ocean spreading out from the river’s banks.
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 will team up with six of eight companies that are advancing designs and research and development for fusion power plants with the mission to achieve a pilot-scale demonstration of fusion within a decade.
Climate change often comes down to how it affects water, whether it’s for drinking, electricity generation, or how flooding affects people and infrastructure. To better understand these impacts, ORNL water resources engineer Sudershan Gangrade is integrating knowledge ranging from large-scale climate projections to local meteorology and hydrology and using high-performance computing to create a holistic view of the future.
When virtually unlimited energy from fusion becomes a reality on Earth, Phil Snyder and his team will have had a hand in making it happen.
Mickey Wade has been named associate laboratory director for the Fusion and Fission Energy and Science Directorate at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, effective April 1.