Advances in superconducting magnet technology and new results at Novosibirsk point the way to improved tandem mirror fusion reactors burning a variety of fuels –- pure DD, D3He, p 11B -- none of which require the breeding of tritium. Inspired by the demonstration at Novosibirsk of stable plasmas confined by simple circular magnetic mirrors, Richard F. Post at Livermore invented the kinetically-stabilized tandem mirror that is conceptually much simpler than tokamaks. In this talk, we show how electron cyclotron heating, also demonstrated at Novosibirsk, can increase plasma temperatures to the billion degree (100 KeV) range at which a variety of light elements undergo fusion.
T. Kenneth Fowler is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1987, and is a member of Section 31, Engineering Sciences. He is also Fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology that advises the Governor and Legislature on science important to the State.
Dr. Fowler received his BE in electrical engineering from Vanderbilt University in 1953, MS in physics from Vanderbilt in 1955, and Ph. D. in theoretical physics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1957.
Before joining the Berkeley faculty in 1988, he spent thirty years in fusion energy research at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, at General Atomics, and finally at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he served as an Associate Director of the Laboratory and head of magnetic fusion energy research from 1970 to 1987. During 1987-1988, he was U. S. Representative on the Working Group that initiated the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor now under construction in France.
He has served on numerous governmental and academic committees and served as Chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Berkeley from 1988 to 1994. He has published more than 100 research papers on plasmas, nuclear physics, nuclear energy and related topics. He is author of The Fusion Quest, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 1997. He was co-inventor of the tandem mirror concept, and served on the Board of Directors of Titan Corporation.
His honors include the Distinguished Service Citation from the University of Wisconsin in 1981 and the Berkeley Citation in 1995.
