Nuclear Fusion Archives - Prof Prabhat Ranjan's Blog

29th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, London -Energy Justice and Social Licensing Discussion

Prof Prabhat Ranjan’s talk at 29th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, London on “Energy Justice and Social Licensing”

Video of the talk

Transcript of the talk

ARTURO(Moderator):

So I’ll move us to a global context. You gave a really great introduction of in the US what’s being done.

And I’d like to pass this next question to Prabhat. Prabhat, as the fusion ecosystem moved towards the fusion pilot plants and commercialization, what concerns do you see regarding the global south’s role in the process? And what opportunities do you envision in this process?

PRABHAT RANJAN(Panelist):

Thank you. Global South is not only a geographical concept. It’s also an economic concept. And that economic concept keeps changing. And the countries that are part of the global south are not really fixed. Today, if I take from Steve’s talk, he talked about the industrial revolution. If I see economy before that, from 1st AD to 1800 AD, it was India and China, which was producing maximum 20 % to 30 % of global manufacturing was happening in India and China. It was industrial revolution which changed the games. And things moved to global north at that time. And the countries like India became poorer in that process.

Dr Bikash Sinha – My Memories

I returned from the USA after finishing my Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley in 1986 to Kolkata. My research work was on Nuclear Fusion and it was carried out at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory(LBL) using the fastest computers of the world at that time(CRAY-1, CRAY-2) set up as part of the Magnetic Fusion Energy Computer Center(MFECC) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory(LLNL).

My Contribution to Nuclear Fusion Technology

For nearly four decades, I have been involved in the Nuclear Fusion work due to a midnight patriotic feeling while on my way out of the country for higher studies and since then have continued to play a role in developing or promoting nuclear fusion in India. I hope to continue contributing to this and expect to see applications happening in India too!

Starting in 1983 at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (and Univ of California, Berkeley) till 2002, I did full-time research in the area of Nuclear Fusion in USA and India. I contributed through modeling, development of data acquisition and control system, variety of system development, experiments, and operational improvements as well as solving technical problems to enhance the performance of both the first generation Tokamaks(a type of Nuclear Fusion Reactor) in Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics(SINP), Kolkata and Institute for Plasma Research(IPR), Gandhinagar to international levels of performance. At IPR, I was project leader of Aditya Tokamak from 1996 to 2002. I was also Project Leader of SST-1(Superconducting Tokamak) Operation and Control Group from 1997-2002.

Here I describe my contribution during the continued contribution to Nuclear Fusion for almost 4 decades.

Nuclear Fusion in India : Past, Present and Future

This is video of a plenary talk that was given at Bihar Science Conference on Dec 3, 2020 held online. Talk gives overall progress of nuclear fusion in last 4 decades in India and where we need to go. The talk also makes historic announcement regarding a privately funded Nuclear Fusion project in India code named – Project Sanlayan. Here is the link to video – talk starts after 3:00 minutes.

DYPIU : National Science Day discussion on Nuclear Fusion

Prof Prabhat Ranjan, Vice Chancellor, D Y Patil International University, Akurdi, Pune leads a discussion on use of Nuclear Fusion for a clean energy for world. This was organized on the occasion of National Science Day (Feb 28, 2021). He is joined by Dr Akash Singh, Inventor and Investor and Mr Paul Mahal, a semiconductor expert and CEO, Stanford Ventures – both based out of Silicon Valley, USA.

Dancing Sparks in ADITYA Tokamak(Nuclear Fusion Reactor)

This blog talks about how we started to notice sparks at different location on the top of machine, which had nothing to do with insulation failures but improper grounding and kept us clueless for long time.

This blog talks about how we started to notice sparks at different locations on the top of the machine, which had nothing to do with insulation failures but improper grounding and kept us clueless for a long time.

Mystery of Error Fields in ADITYA Tokamak(Nuclear Fusion Reactor)!

This blog talks about how in rush to complete the project, a major deviation during manufacturing of Magnet Coils was accepted that impacted the performance of the Machine throughout its life.

This blog talks about how in rush to complete the project, a major deviation during manufacturing of Magnet Coils was accepted that impacted the performance of the Machine throughout its life.