![Man in blue button down shirt poses outside for a picture with his arms crossed.](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_square_large/public/2024-07/Troy_Carter_headshot.jpeg?h=8a7fc05e&itok=VFmZIzHo)
Carter to lead Fusion Energy Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
A tiny vial of gray powder produced at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the backbone of a new experiment to study the intense magnetic fields created in nuclear collisions.
With the production of 50 grams of plutonium-238, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have restored a U.S. capability dormant for nearly 30 years and set the course to provide power for NASA and other missions.
When it’s up and running, the ITER fusion reactor will be very big and very hot, with more than 800 cubic meters of hydrogen plasma reaching 170 million degrees centigrade. The systems that fuel and control it, on the other hand, will be small and very cold. Pellets of frozen gas will be shot int...