bechtelNSTX

U.S. Department of Energy. //National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX)//. Princeton, NJ: U.S. Department of Energy, March 2011.  **  Where does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials? ** The author of this work is the division of the government responsible for the energy concerns of our country, the United States Department of Energy, (US DOE). There are many other pieces of work composed by this group covering various different energy sources. The credentials of this department are very good, because it is a large collaboration of scientists working together. **  What is the main topic or argument of the text? ** The purpose of this text is to describe the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) taking place at the PPPL. The purpose of this project is to yield research results that may open an attractive path towards developing fusion energy as an abundant, safe, affordable, and environmentally sound means of generating electricity. The NSTX device is exploring a novel structure for the magnetic field used to contain plasma. Sufficient temperature and pressure must be maintained in the plasma using the insulation provided by a suitably shaped magnetic field. NSTX is essentially a small scale test version of what could eventually be the first self sustaining fusion reactor. **  Describe at least three ways that the main topic or argument is fleshed out. ** The main topic of this document can best be fleshed out by reading the introductory paragraph of the material. Another way to get an idea of what is covered it to read the headings of every section and the first sentence of each paragraph. An additional way to get an idea of what is covered is to look at the images and charts and read that accompanying captions. **  What three quotes capture the critical import of the text? ** “The theory of magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD) describing the interaction of plasma and a magnetic field shows that the plasma pressure needed to produce self-sustaining fusion in the ST can be maintained with a lower magnetic field strength… successful development of the ST approach to plasma confinement may lead to economical fusion power plants.” “The experiments on NSTX are being conducted by a collaborative research team of physicists and engineers from 30 US laboratories and universities and 28 international institutions from 11 countries.” “The quantity called ‘toroidal beta’ is the ratio of the average plasma pressure to the pressure of the main applied magnetic field and is a measure of the efficiency with which the magnetic field is utilized in containing the plasma. NSTX has attained its original target, a toroidal beta approaching 40% which is higher by a factor of about 4 than the best values achieved in conventional tokamaks…. Another important quantity for assessing progress towards fusion goals is the energy confinement time which is a measure of how long the plasma can contain the energy used to heat it… With NBI (neutral-beam injection) heating the energy confinement time in NSTX has been consistently 1.5 to 2.5 times that expected from the results accumulated from conventional tokamaks running in their basic mode of operation.” **  Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports your research focus. **  The evidence in this text support my research focus because this will be one of the projects I choose to focus on for this energy alternative. This document gives a good deal of information on this project. The only other thing I may need is to look up how funding has been handled.
 * Full citation. **