PRESS RELEASE
Fusion Research Advances in Russia
Jan. 3, 2017 (EIRNS)—Fusion scientists at the famed Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in Siberia report that they are completing the first stage of work on an innovative fusion experiment, called a Gas Dynamic Trap. It is a mirror fusion machine, which is an open vessel, like an unwrapped tokamak. They report that they have achieved a plasma temperature "on a scale of ten million degrees." Their aim is to increase the steady heating of the plasma by three- or four-fold, through the use of a microwave heating system, which, the scientists told Sputnik News, is at the Kurchatov research center in Moscow.
The Budker Institute is seeking financing for their experimental device from the Russian Science Foundation, to support the next two years of the program. The Deputy Director of the Institute, Aleksander Ivanov, told RIA Novosti that the recent results confirm "a very important milestone for our work. Now we can seriously begin to consider options for the establishment of fusion systems based on open traps."
Fusion Power Associates (FPA) has produced a summary of the major achievements in magnetic fusion research over the past year, which highlights experimental results obtained on the Chinese and South Korean tokamaks—EAST and KSTAR, respectively. EAST reached a new milestone in its own operations, achieving a greater than 60-second-long plasma pulse, and KSTAR set a world record of 70 seconds of high-performance operation—each machine under unique conditions.
FPA founder Steve Dean particularly recognized the hard work and dedication the scientists expended to reach these results, and, in the Chinese case, the importance of international collaboration.
