HOW TOKAMAK RESEARCH IS PAVING THE WAY FOR SUCCESSFUL FUSION ENERGY REACTORS
Following the dream of fusion power, which would provide humanity with the same abundant energy as produced by the sun, scientific research is focusing on creating and controlling high-temperature, burning plasma, as it exists in stars, using deuterium, a type of hydrogen abundant in the oceans. Significant progress toward this goal has been made in the area of tokamak research that aims to confine the plasma through magnetic fields and provide the basis for ITER, the next-step fusion device already presented at the 2009 Falling Walls. New technologies have been developed to protect the walls of fusion reactors against temperatures of 200 million degrees. Fusion scientist Rachael McDermott received her Ph.D. in Plasma Physics and Fusion Technology from the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the MIT. She is now a member of the ASDEX Upgrade team, a tokamak project of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, and of the Helmholtz Association Nachwuchsgruppe, and will present, in 15 minutes, the most recent advances on the journey to the ultimate clean energy source.