Fusion program at MIT is ending
Date: Saturday, May 25, 2013 @ 11:40:00 UTC
Topic: Science
By Carolyn Y. Johnson/ The Boston Globe Staff/ May 20, 2013
Layoffs predicted; federal funds cut
A long-running Massachusetts Institute of Technology research experiment that explores nuclear fusion as a possible energy source will shut down within a year, as its already diminished federal funding has been cut.
Miklos Porkolab, director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center where the project is housed, said that unless Congress decides to step in, 70 employees will be laid off, including physicists, technicians, engineers, and support staff. The shutdown will leave only two fusion experiments in the United States, one at Princeton University and the other at General Atomics, a company in San Diego...
...The US Department of Energy is increasing its overall funding of fusion research, but is shifting money from its domestic program to a large, collaborative international project being built in France called ITER. MIT is continuing to push for funding for its program to be reinstated...
Full article: Fusion program at MIT is ending
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