FuseNet Photo of the Month - March 2012

LDX was classified as a "concept exploration" experiment, and started as a collaboration between Columbia University and MIT. Although LDX was very successful in determining the underlying physics for plasma confinement in a dipole field and in establishing a levitated dipole as a unique and possibly ideal approach for a fusion-based energy source, funding was ended and the effort stopped in November of 2011. The reason that research on LDX and other innovative concepts was ended, was that the U S Department of Energy wanted to focus their resources on tokamaks and closely related confinement approaches. MIT and Columbia University believe that the results to date are promising and so are trying to find other avenues for funding this research.