FPN09-35

U.S. Fusion Program Receives $83.1M Stimulus

August 19, 2009

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has allocated $83.1 M to its Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (OFES), as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), commonly known as economic stimulus funds. The allocation is from the $1.6 billion allocated to DOE's Office of Science, of which OFES is a part.

The allocations (and purpose as quoted from DOE postings) are as follows:

$20 M
for a new High Energy Density Laboratory Plasma Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) Instrument Project at Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC). Funds will be used to procure and install equipment for the MEC instrument, including x-ray beam transport system, x-ray optics and diagnostics, vacuum chamber, short pulse laser, long pulse laser, diagnostics and control systems.

$11.7 M
for upgrades of the national DIII-D tokamak at General Atomics. The project will upgrade the auxiliary heating systems, power systems, core and edge diagnostics, and support new short term postdoctoral research positions for the added diagnostic capability. The upgraded systems will significantly increase the scientific productivity, operational efficiency, and reliability of the experiments. The upgrades will provide major new tools to the fusion research community to control and understand fusion plasmas in conditions that are currently inaccessible. The added capabilities will allow the facilities to conduct world leading research for many years after this initial investment. Portions of the funding will be managed by several DOE laboratories, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ($810,000), Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory ($688,000), Oak Ridge National Laboratory ($144,000) and Sandia National Laboratories ($75,000).

$11.0 M
for upgrading the Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment (NDCX-II) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Funding will be provided to increase the energy on target by a factor of 100 for the Heavy Ion Fusion (HIF) and Warm Dense Matter (WDM) research communities.

$9.7 M
will be used to fully fund two Plasma Science Centers (PSC) for their entire five year lifetime. The PSC program started in 2004 with the objective of establishing academic centers of excellence that will focus on fundamental issues of widely recognized importance to plasma science. The PSCs will be supported to perform plasma science research in areas of such wide scope and complexity that it would not be feasible for individual investigators or small groups to make progress, such as plasma turbulence, plasma computational algorithms and non-linear plasma physics. The PSCs will consist of well-coordinated collaborative teams of scientists with the wide breadth of knowledge and skills required to tackle large and complex plasma science problems.

$7.0 M
will be used to enhance and upgrade several key components of the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX), one of the Nation's key centers for magnetic fusion energy research at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. The NSTX Research Enhancement/Upgrade Project will enable timely implementations of key, high priority NSTX facility and diagnostic upgrades that will result in significantly greater research productivity.

$4.9 M
will be provided for improvements in infrastructure for Innovative Confinement Concept (ICC) experiments by upgrading diagnostics, heating systems, controls, power supplies and other experimental equipment on existing projects that will significantly improve their near-term chances of finding better ways to confine plasmas and to understand the properties of these plasmas.

$5.0 M
will be used to upgrade the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory's 138KV switch gear, transformers, and associated circuit breakers.

$5.0 M
will be provided for the Alcator C-Mod Facility Upgrade at MIT. It will consist of radio frequency (RF) heating and current drive systems enhancements and several diagnostics systems improvements.

$4.9 M
will be provided to allow the three major fusion facilities (DIII-D, C-Mod, and N STX) to operate for an additional five weeks each in the FY 2009/FY 2010 time frame.

$3.9 M
will be provided to improve infrastructure for general plasma science user facilities by upgrading diagnostics, heating systems, controls, power supplies and other experimental equipment on existing projects.

Further details on these and other DOE ARRA projects are posted at:

http://www.energy.gov/recovery/reports.htm

http://www.energy.gov/recovery/documents/DOE_ARRA_Awardees.xls

http://www.energy.gov/recovery/documents/Office_of_Science_Program_Plan.pdf