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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Shifting the paradigm of supply chain
Chad Wolf
When I began my nuclear career, I was coached up in the nuclear energy culture of the day to “run silent, run deep,” a mindset rooted in the U.S. Navy’s submarine philosophy. That was the norm—until Fukushima.
The nuclear renaissance that many had envisioned hit a wall. The focus shifted from expansion to survival. Many utility communications efforts pivoted from silence to broadcast, showcasing nuclear energy’s elegance and reliability. Nevertheless, despite being clean baseload 24/7 power that delivered a 90 percent capacity factor or higher, nuclear energy was painted as risky and expensive (alongside energy policies and incentives that favored renewables).
Economics became a driving force threatening to shutter nuclear power. The Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative launched in 2015 challenged the industry to sustain high performance yet cut costs by up to 30 percent.
H. R. Koslowski
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 61 | Number 2 | February 2012 | Pages 96-103
Equilibrium and Instabilities | Proceedings of the Tenth Carolus Magnus Summer School on Plasma and Fusion Energy Physics | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-A13496
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This article summarises the constraints for tokamak operation. The operating space is restricted by several limitations among which the plasma performance and hence the resulting fusion power has to be optimized. Hard limits which lead ultimately to a termination of the discharge and may damage the first wall as well as soft limits resulting in a reduction of the energy content (and the generated fusion power) of the plasma are described. The operational limits can be summarized in two general groups: excessive radiation from the plasma, and violation of global or local MHD stability boundaries.
