INNOVATION CENTER: The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory will be holding a groundbreaking ceremony on May 9 for its new $109.7 million Princeton Plasma Innovation Center (PPIC), as Fusion Energy Week features a number of engaging activities, in-person and virtual, for the general public. The above rendering of the PPIC building, scheduled for completion by 2027, shows the three-story North Wing with the roof garden to the left, and the South Wing laboratory building. (Rendering courtesy of SmithGroup)

By Donald Gilpin

The first-ever Fusion Energy Week, a worldwide initiative to inform and engage the pubic with the world of fusion energy, is coming up, and the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab (PPPL) will be kicking off activities on May 4 with a pop-up Science on Saturday presentation on the quest for fusion energy at the PPPL since 1951.

PPPL Science Education Department Head Arturo Dominguez, who is one of three leaders of the U.S. Fusion Outreach Team and one of three organizers of the week’s activities, noted that there are events scheduled in person and virtually all over the world, with information and registration available at usfusionenergy.org.

On Thursday, May 9 at 11 a.m., PPPL will be holding a groundbreaking ceremony for its new $109.7 million Princeton Plasma Innovation Center (PPIC), which will be funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Expected to take three years to complete, PPIC will be the PPPL’s first new building in about 50 years and will provide new laboratory and office space at a time when PPPL is expanding its research mission and increasing its staff. It will replace the Theory Wing, which has housed theoretical physicists for about five decades, and part of the Administration Wing.

“PPIC will not only be a beautiful gateway into our national laboratory, but it will also be a sustainable building,” said PPPL Director Steve Cowley, as quoted in a press release. “Sustainability is at the heart of our mission to achieve fusion energy as a clean, safe, and virtually limitless source of energy. PPIC will provide space for our fusion energy research and for research into plasma science applications in microelectronics, quantum computing, and sustainable technologies.”

The new building will have multiple laboratories of different sizes for PPPL researchers and collaborators, as well as additional collaboration spaces, space for science education programs, and offices. The concept of the building, according to the press release, is to “express and embody plasma/fusion science with references to energy, solar light, and magnetism.”

Dominguez described plans for a teaching lab that will accommodate students, teachers, and community members for workshops on plasma, fusion, and STEM activities. “It will be a welcoming space that will bring in folks from the community to participate in the state-of-the-art research that we do here at the lab. I’m very excited about it,” he said.

In this Saturday’s PPPL event titled “Lyman Spitzer’s Legacy of Innovation in the Quest for Fusion Energy,” Greg Hammett, principal research physicist in computational science at the PPPL, will trace the early history of fusion research and the impact of Spitzer, who conceived of an innovative approach to fusion energy and in 1951 founded what became the PPPL.

Dominguez, who describes Fusion Energy Week as “a grassroots effort to try to get the word out there about fusion,” will be teaming up with scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in California to host a Fusion 101 Webinar on Monday, May 6, from 3 to 4 p.m.

Dominguez and Tammy Ma, plasma physicist at the Livermore National Ignition Facility, will be guiding participants through the current state of the fusion industry, how fusion works, what outstanding challenges still exist, and what main approaches to fusion energy systems are attracting attention around the globe.

For more information and registration for this and other Fusion Energy Week events, visit usfusionenergy.org.

“Amazing things are happening right now in fusion energy science and technology,” the fusion energy website states. “Fusion energy has never been closer to appearing on the electrical grid, which has the potential to completely transform the global energy market. In the collaborative world of modern science, we all have an opportunity to not only watch this amazing transformation happen, but to be a part of it.”