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Fusion Science and Technology
November 2025
Latest News
Fusion office bill introduced in line with DOE reorganization plan
Cornyn
Padilla
Sens. Alex Padilla (D., Calif.) and John Cornyn (R., Texas) have introduced bipartisan legislation to formally establish the Office of Fusion at the Department of Energy. This move seeks to codify one of the many changes put forward by the recent internal reorganization plan for offices at the DOE.
Companion legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Reps. Don Beyer (D., Va.) and Jay Obernolte (R., Calif.), who are cochairs of the House Fusion Energy Caucus.
Details: According to Obernolte, “Congress must provide clear direction and a coordinated federal strategy to move fusion from the lab to the grid, and this legislation does exactly that.”
Dagui Wang, Jin Wang, Liqin Hu, Jie Wu, Fang Wang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 8 | November 2019 | Pages 1024-1029
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1647082
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The construction of ITER indicates that the development of fusion energy has entered the engineering stage. Reliability assurance, which is essential in the design and safety supervision of a new reactor, is an urgent problem to be solved in the process of fusion reactor engineering. But, up to now, the reliability work of a fusion device has not considered the security of the fusion reactor. This paper proposes a method to establish a reliability index for fusion safety–related components. The reliability index is a useful indicator to evaluate the reliability of the system, and it is also the regulatory basis for regulatory authorities. First, this paper gives the recommended values of probability safety goals for a fusion reactor. Second, the reliability requirements for the fusion safety system that meet the safety goals are calculated. In this part, a Probability Safety Assessment (PSA) is adopted to establish the risk models and calculate the undesired consequences of a fusion reactor. Based on the PSA analysis results, a risk-informed approach is used to categorize the plant structures, systems, and components of the fusion reactor as four categories according to their safety significance. Last, the reliability index of the safety-related components is given based on the results of the risk-informed safety categorization and PSA analysis results. The validation of the reliability index system is still being studied, and this work is expected to support the reliability evaluation and safety supervision of a fusion reactor in the future.