Transport and Confinement

Mission

What are the expected outputs of the Expert Group?

• Provide feedback to Advocacy Groups by evaluating the scientific and technical accuracy of their ideas and initiatives.
• Evaluate the breadth of Advocacy Group input relative to the previously identified needs (ReNeW, 2015 PMI Workshop Report, etc...) and identify and solicit the community to suggest ideas to close remaining gaps

What will the Expert Group NOT do?

• Provide public-facing output on recommendations and prioritization of the various Advocacy Group initiatives

Getting Involved

This Expert Group is open to anyone who is looking to participate, and should contact the Leader listed in the webpage header. You can get involved a little, or a lot, but we will ask for certain minimum amount of time (TBD) that can be devoted to this process to ensure we have the resources we need. The internal deliberations and discussions of the Expert Group are kept private to ensure an open and free exchange of ideas, while the output will be accessible (see below)

If you simply want to provide suggestions or anonymous input, then you can use the anonymous submission form

Our Expert Group presently meets via Zoom as well as circulates discussions via email and a Google Doc that the expert group members can view.

The first kickoff meeting was Wednesday May 15, 1 PM ET (10 AM PT)

25 regular meetings were held from Tuedsay May 21 through Friday Oct. 11th on Tuesdays (12 PM ET / 9 AM PT) and Fridays (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT)

Topical Areas

Topical areas expected to be evaluated within the T&C expert group likely include:

• Core and edge transport physics (energy, particle/impurity, momentum; including H-mode pedestals)
• Validation through measurement, theory, modeling & simulation
• Confinement projections
• 3D transport

Membership

The following people are people are currently participating in this Expert Group (updated 6/7/2019):

• Walter Guttenfelder, Brian Grierson (Transport & Confinement Expert Group leaders)
• Group Members (56): I. Abel, T. Akiyama, M. Austin, D. Battaglia, L. Baylor, A. Bortolon, D. Brennan, M. Brookman, R. Buttery, J. Canik, C.S. Chang, Y. Chen, D. Demers, A. Diallo, W. Dorland, B. Faber, M. Flanders, C. Greenfield, M. Greenwald, B. Grierson, S. Gupta, W. Guttenfelder, G. Hammett, A. Hassam, D. Hatch, E. Hinson, C. Holland, J. Hughes, J. R. King, F. Laggner, A. Marinoni, M. Mauel, G. McKee, L. Morton, R. Moyer, R. Nazikian, A. Pankin, S. Parker, MJ Pueschel, Y. Ren, T. Rhodes, J. Rice, W. Rowan, D. Schlossberg, L. Schmitz, F. Scotti, D. Smith, S. Smith, P. Snyder, V. Soukhanovskii, G. Staebler, P. Terry, D. Weisberg, D. Whyte, R. Wilcox, S. Wukitch
• and YOU if you join!

Initiatives the Expert Group is Has Evaluated

Collaborations On The SPARC Device

Initiate Collaboration with QST on new Japanese tokamak JT60SA

Full Participation in ITER: The US Fusion Community’s First Opportunity to Study a Burning Plasma at High Gain

A National Research Program to Prepare for a Compact Fusion Pilot Plant by Resolving the Physics of Sustained High Power Density Conditions

The Compact Fusion Pilot Plant Mission Definition, Design, and Required R&D Program

Plasma Optimization, Preparation of the Plasma Scenario for the Compact Fusion Pilot Plant

A national initiative to accelerate ITER research and maximize the US return on ITER

Expand Capacity Computing

The need for a diverse fusion energy research and development portfolio for the pursuit of economically competitive fusion power

A U.S. Intermediate Scale Stellarator Experiment

An Initiative to Establish Power Exhaust Solutions for a Compact Pilot Plant

The NSTX-U Facility in the 2020s: Advancing the Physics Basis for Configuration Optimization Toward a Compact Fusion Pilot Plant

The Stellarator Path to a low-cost Pilot Plant

Reversed-field pinch research toward Ohmic ignition at high engineering beta

Advancing Fusion Energy with Predictive Theory-Based Models

Near-Term Initiatives to Close the Fusion Technology Gaps to a Compact Fusion Pilot Plant

Evaluations of these initiatives have been posted on the DPP-CPP Website

Expert Group Output

Workshop #1

Contribution to EG Summaries

Evaluation of Initiatives (8/31/2019)

Initiative evaluations will be released on Aug. 31 2019

The TC EG decided to adopt two high-level Gaps from the 2007 Priorities, Gaps & Opportunities report to guide our evaluation thinking:

Gap 1: Sufficient understanding of all areas of the underlying plasma physics to predict the performance and optimize the design and operation of future. Areas likely to require additional research include turbulent transport and multi-scale, multi-physics coupling.

Gap 2: Demonstration of integrated, steady-state, high-performance (advanced) burning plasmas, including first wall and divertor interactions. The main challenge is combining high fusion gain with the strategies needed for steady- state operation.

Note: We intend for these gaps to be applied to any magnetic confinement concept (whereas the 2007 PGO report focused exclusively on the tokamak path from ITER to DEMO). E.g. “steady-state” could instead be interpreted as “high average power output”, if needed. However, for any MFE confinement concept to be evaluated, it must have articulated and validated basic physical principles of operation.

Workshop #2 (11/18/2019)

For workshop #2 the TC EG produced a series of Strategic Elements, that when combined into a Strategic Block that closes all identified Gaps. The final version of the time-indepenedent Strategic Block is publically available here. The EG did not produce an agreed-upon time sequence for public release and deferred sequencing to CPP-Houston.

CPP-Houston

By CPP-Houston the role of the EGs had transitioned to a forum for feedback and discussion on the Strategic Plan and was no longer charged with producing specific and structured output.

Provide Input to the Expert Group

There are multiple ways that you can provide input and we would like to get as much feedback from the community as possible. You can

• Provide input through the submission forms on the expert groups website, which can be linked to your name or provided anonymously*
• Directly e-mail the Expert Group leader and/or members who can share your concerns during our internal discussions
• Join the Expert Group and get involved directly - we understand you are busy and so can try to accommodate your participation

*The purpose of allowing anonymous input is to make sure people can provide evaluation and criticism of ideas that may be linked to their on-going research area and are worried that feedback negatively impact their career progression. If providing feedback anomalously, you will need to lay out a reasoned argument, including citations to prove your point as we won't be able to rely on name/title/position/experience to provide context.