The DOE SC program in FES hereby announces its interest in Innovative Fusion Technology and Collaborative Fusion Energy Research in the DIII-D National Program. The aims of this FOA are two-fold. First, it aims at research to advance innovative fusion technology that supports the tokamak path to fusion energy. Second, it aims to support collaborative research activities in fusion energy research at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility. Among the objectives is to enable the U.S. to aim at a fusion pilot plant based on the advanced tokamak concept.
The FES Advanced Tokamak (AT) program area addresses gaps in the physics and technology basis for the conventional tokamak approach to magnetic confinement fusion. The AT program develops methods that simultaneously obtain high plasma pressure, stationary plasma profiles, high plasma confinement, and adequate particle and power handling. The program includes research and facility operations on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, an SC scientific user facility hosted by General Atomics in San Diego, CA, and small-scale advanced tokamak research conducted on university-scale devices. DIII-D is the largest magnetic fusion research experiment in the U.S. It can magnetically confine plasmas at temperatures relevant to burning plasma conditions. Its extensive set of advanced diagnostic systems and extraordinary flexibility to explore various operating regimes make it a world leading tokamak research facility. Smallscale advanced tokamak research is complementary to the efforts at DIII-D and other user facilities, providing rapid and cost-effective development of new techniques, prototyping of new concepts, and detailed validation of theoretical models. These activities support projections to the burning plasma regime in which plasma heating is due primarily to the energy released from fusion reactions.
Several programmatic events have occurred recently that motivate increased emphasis on FES’s energy mission while maintaining support for fundamental scientific research. On November 30, 2018, the Office of Science charged the FES Advisory Committee (FESAC) to undertake a new long-range strategic planning (LRP) activity for the entire FES program including Fusion Science and Technology and Discovery Plasma sciences. In December 2020, FESAC unanimously approved the final LRP report “Powering the Future Fusion & Plasmas, A longrange plan to deliver fusion energy and to advance plasma science.”[1] The LRP report was informed by the 2020 “Community Plan for Fusion Energy and Discovery Plasma Sciences,” or CPP Report.[2] In 2021, the National Academies report “Bringing Fusion to the U.S. Grid,” describes innovations and requirements needed for a fusion pilot plant (FPP).[3] Following these events, an agency-wide activity was initiated to accelerate fusion energy research, development, and demonstration activities to realize a commercially relevant FPP on a decadal timescale, an effort known as the Bold Decadal Vision (BDV) for Commercial Fusion Energy.
In alignment with these events, the DIII-D program is refocusing supported activities on addressing major relevant recommendations of the LRP, CPP report, the National Academies report, and the BDV. These include (1) the utilization of DIII-D and collaboration with other world-leading tokamak facilities to ensure that FPP design gaps for tokamaks are addressed in a timely manner; (2) expansion of the R&D effort in fusion materials and technology; and (3) closing the integrated tokamak and exhaust gap. Research supported under this FOA is focused on two areas: innovative fusion technology (IFT) and collaborative research (CR).
Applicant institutions are limited to no more than one pre-application, or application per research area (e.g., Collaborative Research or Innovative Fusion Technology) for a total of two preapplications, or applications.
Interested applicants from within Duke should contact fundopps@duke.edu as early as possible.
Deadlines:
Innovative Fusion Technology (IFT)
The realization of the tokamak path to fusion energy requires advances in supporting technologies to address experimental capability gaps and achieve higher levels of fusion performance while avoiding interruptions to facility operation and ensuring facility safety. The purpose of this focus area is to develop these supporting technologies for installation and exploitation on the DIII-D facility. IFT activities include the development of new systems on DIII-D as well as systems first developed at collaborating institutions provided there is a commitment and plan to install them on DIII-D once demonstrated and characterized. As such, it addresses recommendations to leverage small-scale experiments and facilities to develop transformative enabling technology. Note that the development of entirely new tokamak facilities is out of scope for this FOA, but activities on existing facilities are in scope.
Collaborative Research
The Collaborative Research area aims at supporting DIII-D facility users. The DIII-D program is highly collaborative in nature, where participating scientists provide support to the entire research team in order to deliver elements needed for a scientific study on DIII-D (e.g., operating diagnostic systems, providing analyzed data, and supporting facility operations where appropriate). Each DIII-D research study typically requires the engagement and support of an extended group of scientists to plan and conduct the experiments, and to collect and analyze the resulting data.
