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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Fusion Science and Technology
July 2025
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Hash Hashemian: Visionary leadership
As Dr. Hashem M. “Hash” Hashemian prepares to step into his term as President of the American Nuclear Society, he is clear that he wants to make the most of this unique moment.
A groundswell in public approval of nuclear is finding a home in growing governmental support that is backed by a tailwind of technological innovation. “Now is a good time to be in nuclear,” Hashemian said, as he explained the criticality of this moment and what he hoped to accomplish as president.
D. R. Mikkelsen, H. Maassberg, M. C. Zarnstorff, C. D. Beidler, W. A. Houlberg, W. Kernbichler, H. Mynick, D. A. Spong, P. Strand, V. Tribaldos
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 51 | Number 2 | February 2007 | Pages 166-180
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1297
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We explore whether the energy confinement and planned heating in the National Compact Stellarator Experiment (NCSX) are sufficient to test magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stability limits, and whether the configuration is sufficiently quasi-axisymmetric to reduce the neoclassical ripple transport to low levels, thereby allowing tokamak-like transport. A zero-dimensional model with fixed profile shapes is related to global energy confinement scalings for stellarators and tokamaks, neoclassical transport properties are assessed with the DKES, NEO, and NCLASS codes, and a power balance code is used to predict temperature profiles. Reaching the NCSX goal of <> = 4% at low collisionality will require HISS-95 = 3, which is higher than the best achieved in present stellarators. However, this level of confinement is actually ~10% lower than that predicted by the ITER-97P tokamak L-mode scaling. By operating near the stellarator density limit, the required HISS-95 is reduced by 35%. The high degree of quasi-axisymmetry of the configuration and the self-consistent "ambipolar" electric field reduce the neoclassical ripple transport to a small fraction of the neoclassical axisymmetric transport. A combination of neoclassical and anomalous transport models produces pressure profile shapes that are within the range of those used to study the MHD stability of NCSX. We find that <> = 4% plasmas are "neoclassically accessible" and are compatible with large levels of anomalous transport in the plasma periphery.