PPPL News Releases

Princeton Plasma Physics Lab Receiving $13.8 Million in Recovery Act Funding
August 04, 2009

Plainsboro, New Jersey — During the next two years, the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) will receive a total of $13.8 million in funding as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the stimulus bill signed by President Obama earlier this year. The stimulus funding will be in addition to the Laboratory's regular budget allocations for fiscal years 2009 through 2011. PPPL, funded by the U.S. DOE and managed by Princeton University, advances the coupled fields of fusion energy and plasma physics.

PPPL's stimulus funds include $8.8 million for a variety of initiatives in fusion energy research and $5 million for infrastructure improvements at the Laboratory. PPPL is one of ten of DOE's national laboratories in six states receiving ARRA funding at this time.

PPPL Director Stewart Prager said, "We are pleased that stimulus funding is being made available for Princeton's fusion energy research program. The additional research capabilities enabled by this funding will accelerate research on the major experiment at PPPL, where we are exploring new methods to confine the hot plasma that forms the core of a fusion energy system." Fusion is the process that powers the sun and the stars. In the interior of stars, matter is converted into energy by the fusion, or joining, of the nuclei of light atoms to form heavier elements. At PPPL, physicists use a magnetic field to confine plasma — a hot ionized gas that is the fuel for fusion energy production. Scientists hope eventually to use fusion energy for the generation of electricity.

PPPL's ARRA funding will be used to upgrade and expand the use of the Laboratory's primary fusion facility — the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX). Several of the diagnostic instruments, employed on the experiment to measure the behavior of plasma, will be upgraded, and NSTX research operations will be increased by a total of five weeks during the next two years — closer to the facility's full utilization level. Also, ARRA funding will allow the hiring of additional post-graduate staff to support these enhanced research capabilities. The upgrades and greater run time are expected to significantly enhance the NSTX's scientific output, accelerating its contribution to the fundamental understanding of fusion plasmas and providing near-term results needed for next-step fusion experiments, including ITER — a large international fusion energy experiment under construction at Cadarche, France.

A portion of PPPL's stimulus funding will be dedicated to the modernization of the Laboratory's electrical distribution system to improve reliability and availability for PPPL's experimental systems. As a long-term source of alternative energy, fusion has many distinct advantages including worldwide availability of inexhaustible low-cost fuel; no contribution to global warming or acid rain; and no possibility of a runaway reaction or meltdown. The materials and by-products of fusion are not suitable for weapons production.

In March, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced $1.2 billion of stimulus funding for DOE Office of Science projects. On July 17, DOE announced a new Office of Science Early Career Research Program to be funded with $85 million in Recovery Act funds.  With this third and final round of funding, the Obama Administration has now approved projects covering the full $1.6 billion that the DOE Office of Science received from Congress under the Recovery Act.

The Department of Energy's news release is available at: www.energy.gov

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