DOE’s chief weapons scientist to work on inertial fusion energy

Department of Energy undersecretary Steven Koonin has tapped David Crandall, the chief scientist at DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration , to devise a program for developing inertial fusion as an energy source.

In his new position, Crandall “will facilitate cooperation and collaboration between NNSA and the Office of Science, which are key to advances in inertial fusion energy,” according to a memorandum from NNSA administrator Thomas D’Agostino . In an interview last year with Physics Today, Koonin said he planned to step up research toward the use of inertial fusion for electricity generation. In particular, Koonin pointed to the National Ignition Facility , which was built for inertial fusion experiments in support of the nuclear weapons program, as offering an alternative to the magnetic confinement approach embodied in ITER , the international prototype fusion reactor under construction in France.

D’Agostino named Dimitri Kusnezov, director of research and development for national security science and technology, to replace Crandall as chief scientist.

David Kramer