Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor shuts down

17 Jun 2002

The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory's Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR), which in 1994 set the world record for fusion power, became a victim of budget cuts to the U.S. fusion program on April 4. After DOE's fusion budget was cut by one-third in FY 1996, it was determined that this would require the premature closing of one of the major domestic tokamak facilities to allow for increased operation of the others. Some funding will remain to continue analysis of the data collected during the running of TFTR.