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DOE’s latest fusion strategy aims for commercial energy by the 2030s
The Department of Energy has released what it is calling a “finalized” national strategy to accelerate the development and commercialization of fusion energy, with the goal of scaling up the private fusion sector by the mid-2030s.
Released on June 9, the Fusion Science and Technology (FS&T) Roadmap builds on an earlier road map document the DOE released in October 2025, which itself echoed plans issued by the DOE’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences in 2023 and 2024.
According to the DOE, this finalized road map brings together fusion science, technology, infrastructure, workforce development, and commercialization priorities into a single national strategy, outlining how the DOE, industry, universities, and national laboratories will work together to accelerate the path toward U.S. commercial fusion energy.
R. H. Goulding, P. A. Piotrowicz, C. J. Beers, T. M. Biewer, J. F. Caneses, J. B. O. Caughman, N. Kafle, E. G. Lindquist, H. A. Ray, J. Rapp, M. A. Showers
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 7 | October 2019 | Pages 614-620
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1623569
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Ion cyclotron heating (ICH) at a frequency in the 6- to 9-MHz range with electron heating in the 28- to 105-GHz range will be used in the Material Plasma Exposure eXperiment (MPEX) to greatly increase the energy of the plasma stream produced by the helicon plasma source. ICH was chosen over substrate biasing to produce energetic ions because it can more accurately reproduce plasma-material interactions in a fusion device. For instance, when the target is tilted with respect to the background magnetic field during ICH, a magnetic presheath is created so that redeposition phenomena as in a tokamak divertor can be better approximated. ICH experiments were conducted on the Proto-MPEX device, which was developed to provide a physics basis upon which MPEX is designed. In this paper we describe some of these experiments in which the previous fixed graphite target was replaced by a movable stainless steel target. With the new target, the strong, monotonic decrease in ion temperature observed previously as a function of axial distance between the ion cyclotron resonance region and the target was not observed. Instead, only a small drop was seen within ~1 cm of the target. The ion temperatures were determined spectroscopically, utilizing Doppler broadening measurements of an Ar II line, in a plasma that is 90% deuterium and 10% argon. Measurements were obtained using optical fibers at a fixed location, with the target moving perpendicularly relative to the viewing chords. Comparisons with previous results will be discussed, including observed plasma parameters Ti, Te, and ne, and heat flux at the target.