THE INTERVIEW | A LIFE IN FUSION A life in fusion
A leading global authority on fusion tokamaks and a founder and Chief Scientist at Tokamak Energy, Dr Mikhail Gryaznevich spoke to NEI about his career in nuclear fusion.
By Judith Perera
NEI: Why did you come to the UK? I received a personal invitation from Derek Robinson, Director at Culham Laboratory in Oxford. We met at a Fusion conference, and he invited me to participate in the new START project in 1990.
NEI: What was the START project? The START (Small Tight Aspect Ratio Tokamak) experiment at Culham (1991-1998) was the first full-sized spherical tokamak. Its performance led to the construction of a larger device, MAST (Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak), which operated between 2000 and 2013.
Above: Chief Scientist at Tokamak Energy, Dr Mikhail Gryaznevich
NEI: What projects did you work on at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA)? I was in charge of physics programmes on START from 1990 to 1998, and then of MAST from 1997 to 2013. From 2002 to 2013, I also participated at the Joint European Torus (JET) leading RWM (resistive wall mode), EFCC (error filed correction coil) and ELM (edge localised mode) mitigation studies (using RMP - resonant magnetic perturbation).
AFTER GRADUATING WITH AN HONOURS Diploma in Plasma Physics from the Leningrad University, Dr Mikhail Gryaznevich earned a PhD in Plasma Physics and Nuclear Fusion from the USSR Academy of Science. In 1990, he joined the Culham Laboratory in the UK where he was responsible for leading experimental programmes, preparing and performing experiments, designing, constructing and operating tokamak systems and diagnostics, as well as supervising students and scientific and engineering personnel. A Visiting Professor at Imperial College in London and an editorial board member for the Plasma Science & Technology Journal and the Open Plasma Physics Journal founder, as well as the Chief Scientist of Tokamak Energy, he is a leading global authority on tokamaks and has performed experiments on 16 different tokamaks during his distinguished career. He spoke to NEI about his career in nuclear fusion.
NEI: What originally sparked your interest in fusion? I was fired from the University of Leningrad PhD fellowship in 1977 by the KGB and my friends found me a job at the Ioffe Institute in Leningrad. My task was to supervise assembly of a tokamak, Tuman-3. Of course, I was aware of what fusion is, but I haven’t thought about my affiliation to it for nearly 50 years.
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NEI: Why did you leave the UKAEA? I was fired for gross misconduct – for promotion of the STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) project, which is now the main UK Fusion project. At that time, it was “politically incorrect” as it competed with the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor under construction in France – potentially at that time, but in reality also now.
NEI: How did you become involved in the STEP project? I proposed it in 2006, but it was rejected, so I continued this research underground (but not alone!) and was fired for refusing to stop this research.
NEI: What is the main focus of work at Tokamak Energy? As Founder, Chief Scientist and Executive Director, my job was dominated by management. However, my scientific interest was, and is, in the spherical tokamak path to fusion. So, this is the main focus of Tokamak Energy. Recently High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) magnets became another important part of the company’s R&D and business.
NEI: What is the connection between Tokamak Energy and STEP? Today very close. Not only via scientific collaboration and continuing discussions, but as a part of the Celestial partnership, Tokamak Energy is contributing to the engineering design of STEP. This is still not finally formally
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