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On moving fast and breaking things
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
So much of what is happening in federal nuclear policy these days seems driven by a common approach popularized in the technology sector. Silicon Valley calls it “move fast and break things,” a phrase originally associated with Facebook’s early culture under Mark Zuckerberg. The idea emerged in the early 2000s as software companies discovered that rapid iteration, frequent experimentation, and a willingness to tolerate failure could dramatically accelerate innovation. This philosophy helped drive the growth of the social media, smartphones, cloud computing, and digital platforms that now underpin modern economic and social life.
Today, that mindset is also influencing federal nuclear policy. The Trump administration views accelerated nuclear deployment as part of a broader competition with China for technological and AI leadership. In that context, it seems willing to accept greater operational risk in pursuit of strategic advantage and long-term economic and security objectives.
J. S. Hong et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 1 | January 2005 | Pages 240-242
Technical Paper | Open Magnetic Systems for Plasma Confinement | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A650
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Continuing the experiments reported previously, additional microwave power has been applied to the plug region of Hanbit in order to increase the stored energy and beta of the hot-electron plasma created there. Two new 1.5-kW VA-806 klystrons at 7.67 GHz and 7.87 GHz have been used in conjunction with the existing 2-kW CPI klystron at 14 GHz. The plasma is created in order to provide a high-beta ring to stabilize the Hanbit central cell plasma against ballooning instabilities. An array of Hall probes mounted on the outside of the Hanbit plug cavity was installed to measure the axial profile of the Bz fields. The total stored energy was measured by diamagnetic loops and the radial location of the plasma was determined by a Si-PIN diode detector measuring the energetic electron end loss. All three measurements were to be used to determine the radial and axial location of the plasma, the plasma volume, the stored energy, and hence the plasma beta. However, the Bz signal was too small to measure and the diamagnetic signal was smaller than previously found. The ring was found to be very wide and not adequate to stabilize the central cell plasma.