FPN14-14

Stellarator Progress

April 16, 2014

A billion dollar class stellarator/heliotron device (LHD) has been in operation in Japan for many years and another large stellarator (W7-X) is under construction in Germany. The two groups maintain a close collaboration.

The 13th meeting of the Coordinated Working Group for Stellarotor-Heliotron Research was held 26-28 February 2014 at Kyoto University in Japan. A summary of the meeting is provided in the April 2014 issue of Stellarator News: http://web.ornl.gov/sci/fed/stelnews/

The April issue of Stellarator News also describes plans to incorporate a "stellarator module" into a system code being developed to scope out design concepts for a tokamak demonstration power reactor to follow ITER. Although there are many engineering differences between stellarators and tokamaks, there are also many similarities in both the technologies and the physics.

Long-time stellarator advocate and editor of Stellarator News Jim Rome (ORNL retired) has posted his view of the differences between stellarators and tokamaks at: http://jamesrome.net/drupal/iter

He can be reached at:
jamesrome@gmail.com
http://jamesrome.net