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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
A. M. Garofalo
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 48 | Number 2 | October 2005 | Pages 918-930
Technical Paper | DIII-D Tokamak - Achieving Reactor-Level Plasma Pressure | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A1048
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The effort to understand the physics of the resistive wall mode (RWM) and develop methods to control this magnetohydrodynamic mode to allow achievement of higher pressure in advanced tokamak plasmas has been an example of successful multi-institutional collaboration at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, California. DIII-D research in this area has produced several advances and breakthroughs following a coordinated research plan involving a sequence of measurements, development of new analysis tools, and the installation of new diagnostic and feedback stabilization hardware: Suppression of the RWM by active magnetic feedback has been demonstrated using the DIII-D six-element error field correction coil, rotational stabilization of the RWM has been demonstrated and sustained for all values of the plasma pressure from the no-wall to the ideal-wall stability limits, improved RWM feedback stabilization has been shown using a new set of 12 internal control coils, and newly developed models of feedback have shown good agreement with the measurements. By so doing, the DIII-D work on RWM stabilization has become a cornerstone of the long-term advanced tokamak program and is having impact on the world fusion program. Presently both ITER and FIRE are including plans for RWM stabilization in their programs.