2018.3

U.S. Ups Funding For Fusion

Written by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Late last week the final 2018 budget was passed by the United States Congress. While delayed six months, this budget contains significant increases for programs backed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). DOE’s basic research wing, the Office of Science, gets a 16% boost, to $6.26 billion, in a 2018 omnibus spending bill passed by Congress last week. In contrast, last May President Donald Trump’s administration had proposed a 17% cut. The Office of Science oversees six programs, and fusion energy sciences saw one of the largest increases. Fusion research funding will increase 24% to $410 million. This compares to $331 million distributed to fusion programs under the 2017 budget. It’s […]

Benefits of Aneutronic Fusion

Written by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Aneutronic fusion describes any fusion reaction whose products don’t include free neutrons, or one where neutrons carry away less than 1% of the energy released from fusion. This type of fusion reaction has benefits over the more commonly studied fusion reactions. Free neutrons from fusion cause residual radioactivity and structural damage. Yet, aneutronic fusion avoids these detriments and carries another benefit when power generation is the goal of fusion. Most fusion research focuses on fusion between deuterium and tritium (D-T). Both are isotopes of hydrogen. Normally, a hydrogen nucleus consists of a lone proton. Deuterium pairs this single proton with a neutron. Tritium adds yet another neutron to give this flavor of […]

The Real MIT Fusion Announcement

Written by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. This past week many mainstream media outlets devoted coverage to an announcement of a fusion research project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The MIT announcement highlighted an effort to develop a compact tokamak fusion reactor. The headline grabbing news was the prediction that this would yield electricity to the grid in 15 years. Much of this coverage positioned the announcement as possible due to some new novel scientific break-though. Let’s take a closer look. The tokamak device proposed by MIT is essentially the same design proposed by Russian scientists nearly 70 years ago. Tokamaks, invented in the 1950s by Soviet physicists Igor Tamm and Andrei Sakharov, grew from an original […]

Animation Feature Producer Job Description

Date of advert: 4 March 2018, updated 1st of April Deadline: 3 June 2018 5pm (GMT) Interviews: mid-late June 2018 Job Title: Animation Feature Producer Location: UK (meetings in Bournemouth and London) Duration: to be discussed. Payment: per episode (see below). Details to be discussed. Overview: The Focus Fusion Society and Atul’s Earth are looking for an experienced Animation Feature Producer. Your role will be to project manage the production of the feature film, Minnie, from start to finish. Your experience will be invaluable in ensuring all contractual, budgetary, rights and other practical issues are considered and implemented in accordance with all relevant legislation. Your role will also be to integrate and implement solutions to the long term factors post-production […]

Fusion Funding Cuts

Written by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. A few weeks ago President Trump released his proposed budget for fiscal year 2019. This proposal carries cuts to many scientific programs. Programs under threat include several fusion research efforts. Cuts might delay ITER construction funding. Yet, smaller programs could feel the impact most. The University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), which houses one of the most powerful lasers in the US, has slammed what it calls “potentially devastating” budget cuts threatened by the Trump administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2019. University interim president designate Richard Feldman defending LLE released the following statement: The University was disappointed to learn that the Administration’s fiscal year 2019 budget proposes a significant […]