Grant News

Five-Year Multimillion Dollar Contract Renewed for Laboratory for Laser Energetics

Source: Matthew Daneman, "Feds renew funding for UR laser lab," Democrat and Chronicle (November 21, 2007)

One of the key sites on the planet for trying to develop fusion as a potential power source will continue to get the federal support that keeps it operating at least for another five years. The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration has renewed its commitment to fund University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics for another five years. That pot of federal money which could amount to $351 million between now and November 2012 makes up the bulk of what keeps the laser lab operating, said director Robert L. McCrory.

Professor Wins 2 Million Supercomputer Hours

Chuang Ren, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and physics at the University of Rochester has won a U. S. Department of Energy award--and with it a chance to conduct his fusion research on a supercomputer.

This year Ren will use 2 million hours' worth of computing time on the NERSC HPC high performance computer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to run large-scale simulations of fast ignition, a new method to achieve fusion as a long-term, environment-friendly energy source for humanity. He is a computational and theoretical plasma scientist and the project for which he will use the computer time is titled "Three-Dimensional Particle-in-Cell Simulations for Fast Ignition."