Turbulence stirs up more trouble for ITER

17 Jun 2002

New computer studies of magnetically contained plasmas show that instabilities which do not plague smaller tokamaks might represent a threat to long-term confinement of plasmas in machines on the larger scale of the proposed $10-billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

Speaking at the APS plasma physics meeting in November, University of Texas physicists William Dorland and Michael Kotschenreuther said that as a result of the heat lost through the plasma instability, the power output of ITER would fall far short of its design goal. Their remarks are published in this week's edition of Science.